The YSA returns
by FannyT
Summary: With Inuyasha and Kagome off in Europe chasing Naraku, the rest of the Youkai Secret Agency is stuck at home with their own troubles headed their way. But they're lean, mean and keen, and will surely get the bad guys in the end.. right?
1. Welcome back to the YSA

This is the sequel to another story of mine named (guess what) The YSA. Hopefully you can enjoy this even if you haven't read the first story, and if you have… well, welcome back. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these adorable characters. They are the property of Rumiko Takahashi and I have only borrowed them temporarily.

Neither do I own The Matrix, although I will frequently and shamelessly quote the movies throughout the fic. Blame Ginta and Hakkaku.

Welcome back to the YSA

_**From a cassette bearing the words Resignation Interview, later relabelled Private and hid in the secret special drawer of one CIA official:**_

"_Sir, I'd like to hand in my resignation."_

"_...Higurashi, what have I told you about using 'sir'?"_

" '_Don't', sir."_

"_And it's not because I despise authority thinking, you know that."_

"_Yes, sir."_

"_And although of course I don't like seeing my subordinates behaving like a bunch of bleating sheep, that's not the actual reason for my dislike of the word 'sir', either."_

"_No, sir."_

"_The reason is because I'm a woman, Higurashi."_

"_If you say so, sir."_

…

"_Higurashi, if you don't stop your smirking this minute I'll put your SAME SHIT DIFFERENT DAY singlet through the shredder. And call me sir one more time and I swear I'll punch your lights out. I warn you, I've gone a match against Hana Daimen."_

"_No, really? Did you win?"_

"_Well… no. But I lasted the entire first round!"_

"_That's better than my boyfriend, at least."_

"_I know. She told me about him – with many gestures. If you ever have one of those adorable little lover's tiffs with the boy, remember that his nose is his soft spot. But anyway, to get back to the subject... you want to resign. After two weeks as the head of Uncleared Crime."_

"_Yes, well... the work is mostly the same as in the YSA. They always get handed the so called unsolvable crimes – they're the ones people go to when they've tried almost everything else. And if it's the choice of doing the work here or there... it isn't a hard one to make. Hey, I've got a great idea for my replacement though – Hojo would be perfect for the job."_

"_...and if he's stuck here he can't very well come pine for you, that's what you're saying? I thought so. Well, off the record – I'll see to it. And you're very welcome to quit us (this meant in a nice way, you understand). Just send me a resignation request filled with all the legal shit and I'll take care of the works. Now go bust some baddies. When you see Naraku, give him a kick in the butt for me. Oh yeah, and the little shit who cracked the secret database code (you said he worked in the YSA, right?) – kill him, too. And not to forget, if you run into Jinenji some more, tweak his ears for me. Haven't seen him since he was a wee babe, bless him."_

"_I'll keep it all in mind."_

"_And if you ever need us for anything, we're a phone call away."_

"_Thank you. I'll surely be back to visit."_

"_Go on with you now, before I start blubbering."_

"_Alright. Bye, Kaede. Sir."_

"_I take back everything I said. Never come back, you bitch."_

……………………………

"Three months and not so much as a bloody trace of the man," sighed Koga irritably, throwing a print-out of what had turned out to be yet another false lead onto the desk. He pushed his chair back and opened a drawer, rummaging around inside. "I mean, what with Goshinki starting to work on the case and Kagome opening up the entire CIA information base for us, you'd think we should be able to catch the bastard blindfolded!"

"There _is _a reason Naraku was allowed to reign unchallenged for ten years in this city, you know," replied Royakan calmly, from his position in the armchair. He was inspecting one of the arms closely, but looked up to continue, "He's simply one of the cleverest buggers to ever grace the criminal world. Hey, have you ever noticed this dragon someone carved into the chair? Pretty nice. Only I wonder why it's called Sesshy."

"Because Sesshoumaru is the most conceited guy alive," sneered Koga. "Bet you five bucks he did it, and named it after himself." He managed at last to find what he was looking for and drew it out with a sigh. Royakan sat up straighter.

"Is that aspirin? Toss some over here."

The office was blissfully still for a few minutes, as each demon busied himself with his painkiller. However, the frail peace was quickly broken as the agency's youngest member made his customary entrance.

"**TAAAAALLY HO!" **

Shippou bounded in through the door to find Koga and Royakan cowering on the floor with their arms over their heads. "The hell?" he said, frowning in puzzlement. "What are you doing down there? Oh wait, don't tell me..." His face split in a grin. "Party for the twenty-fifth yesterday, am I right or am I right?"

"Twenty-fifth through to twenty-seventh," answered Royakan, his face wearing an expression that could best be described as _Never let me drink again_. "Missus had triplets this time, you know. Hey, why weren't you at the party? Toto-sai missed you, kept saying something stupid about how the only sane voice in the company was gone."

"Oh," said Shippou. "Er."

"Ah, it's OK, you don't have to feel guilty." Royakan waved a hand airily. "You've been to a couple of them already, I know, and if you put work higher on your priority list for once, I don't blame you. Couple of my youngsters feel the same, getting tired of the endless partying every time a new kid comes along... my eldest, Kit, she left after just half an hour or something yesterday. Was meeting a friend, she said."

"Is that so?" said Shippou, very innocently. Koga, despite often being thick as a brick and not very good _at all_ at taking hints, realized this was one time it would be a good idea to change the subject. Royakan was a good father, but he was a very protective father and if he heard the slightest hint of his daughter starting dating he would quite possibly kill something. With all probability, the something would be her date. And Koga didn't want to lose his young colleague (since he himself had only through extensive training learnt how to use search functions on the Internet and still needed Shippou's help for anything more complicated than checking his e-mail).

"So what brings you here, Ship?" he asked quickly, before Royakan had time to start putting two and two together. Shippou turned to him like a drowning man seeing a Coast Guard rescue boat.

"I was actually looking for Ginta and Hakkaku, but since they don't seem to be here I'll do a bit of work on the computer while I'm in. I would like to speak with them though. They coming in today?"

"Nah, probably not." Koga smirked. "They're spending the day at the court."

"Tennis court?"

"High court. As in judges and shit, you know."

"Really?" Shippou frowned, looking puzzled. "This about that guy who owned that company… the environmental hazard? I thought Sesshoumaru and Jaken were handling that case."

"Nah, it's not about that." Koga's smirk grew wider. "It probably helps if I give you a hint: The Wachowski Brothers."

"Oh yeah, they were actually sued for that _Matrix goes Tropical_ they did!" Shippou smacked a hand to his forehead. "That's really sucky. It was such a good movie, too."

"Yeah, apparently one of the charges was _"coming up with a damn good idea and not telling us and then making a movie that was better than anything we've done and to tell the truth, we're just jealous, so can't you find some more cool charges and throw the bastards in jail? (sobbing ensues)"_ Well, at least they're honest." Koga shrugged. "Why did you want Ginta and Hakkaku, anyway?"

"Wanted to know if they know anything about this girl who's helping with inquiries for a case Jinenji's having trouble with; she's called Ayame something... wolf demon, so I thought..."

"Ayame?" Royakan looked up from some papers he'd been perusing. "Koga, wasn't that the girl who..."

"They know her," Koga bit off. He was suddenly very tense. "Though you probably won't get much out of them. And Royakan – yes. Enough said."

"What's this?" asked Shippou curiously. "You know the chick? Who is – " He stopped suddenly, as Koga turned a scowling face to him, hinting that the earlier sighted Coast Guard boat could just as well turn around and leave again. " – ah. Never mind. I'll just get back to... whatever it was I was doing before, then?"

"Good plan," said Koga, with menace. Shippou all but fled out to their second room, where he had been busy for the last couple of weeks doing some "computer stuff", as it was known to the more technologically challenged YSA members. Jaken in particular was deeply suspicious of what he called The Devil's Box, and claimed it was possessed by evil spirits. (To which Shippou had once jokingly replied that demons once used to be classified as evil spirits as well, and been magnificently misunderstood when Jaken horrified shouted "There's a _demon_ trapped in there?")

"So..." said Royakan with a smirk, as soon as the door had closed behind the young fox demon. "Why didn't you offer to help Shippou, then? I imagine you'd have more than enough information on her..."

"That's enough, Roy."

"I mean, you can probably tell him where she likes to eat and stuff..."

"That's _enough_, Roy."

"...and what she does on her free time..."

"Roy, what part of "I'll knock your teeth out if you say another word" is it that you have trouble understanding?"

"Alright, alright, I can take a hint."

"I have yet to see that statement verified."

……………………………

Shippou was setting up their second stationary computer, while letting the first one run a couple of different searches. They had been putting a lot of energy into finding and incriminating Naraku for the last few months, and everyone was getting rather frustrated about the whole affair. After patient research (and quite a bit of illegal hacking) they had been able to pin at least a couple of charges on the man – they could get him for fraud, involvement in drug dealings, illegal possession and distribution of weapons, blackmail and kidnapping. They had a group of CIA technicians working on the poison imp location (Kagome and her contacts again), trying to puzzle together DNA from all the demons who had lost their life there and thus be able to match it with the DNA from Naraku's current body. They had the evidence, they had the figures and they had the witnesses. The only thing they were missing now was the suspect.

Naraku had upped and left a mere three weeks after the trial of Kikyo. The YSA had hardly started nosing around for information when alarms had sounded for the half-demon and he had disappeared without a trace. Shippou still beat himself up about it, convinced that it was his fault for leaving some kind of give-away during a foray into the cyber world. (The rest of the agency patted him on the shoulder sympathetically and said of course he hadn't, while wondering how on earth you could leave traces of yourself in a computer.)

The Spider Club was still up and running, only a bit more low-key. Kanna took care of it now, having in fact run a large part of the club even before Naraku fled. Kagura, meanwhile, had seen Naraku's disappearance as her chance to get off the carousel and had done so without a second glance. She was now sharing a flat with her brother, Goshinki. She was also being kept under a pretty close watch by the YSA, being as she was one of their principal witnesses against Naraku.

Kagome and Inu-yasha had left two weeks earlier, for a world-wide hunt of Naraku. They had mapped out a route taking them past most of his expected whereabouts, and had whined to the CIA for money until Kaede had grown so fed up with them that she'd helped out only to get them out of the country. Happy and relatively rich, they had set off after swearing a solemn oath they would not return until they had Naraku bound hand and foot. _Say what you want about those guys_, thought Shippou, _but they sure take their job seriously._

_Say what you want_ meant, for example, in Kagome's case "She's a hopeless coffee-holic with far too much excess energy", and in Inu-yasha's case "If you cross his path before ten a.m. and Kagome's not there to act as a buffer, RUN."

Oh well. Time to get this computer up and running now.

Shippou cracked his knuckles and his neck, looked around him to see that he had everything he needed, nodded in satisfaction and got down to some serious work.

……………………………

"Hey, Koga?"

"Yeah?"

"You know how Shippou spends a lot of time with Jinenji and them other police plods?"

"Yeah...?"

"And you know he picks up a lot of phrases from them?"

"Yeah."

"And you know what the cops really mean when they say "help with inquiries" ?"

There was a pause, during which Koga thought. Then he was on his feet and on the way out to the computer room, bellowing Shippou's name in a fashion that could still be described as an officer of the Coast Guard, only now it was one in pursuit of illegal smugglers.

Royakan sat back with a satisfied sigh and grinned to himself. You couldn't call it a morning unless you'd stirred some buggers up. And the YSA offered a right smorgasbord of easily manipulated, emotional guys. Oh, how he loved his job.

……………………………

Shippou was happily connecting wires when a jingle sounded from the other computer. He quickly finished what he was doing and then checked to see what it was. Thirty seconds later he was sprinting out of the room. He collided with Koga in the door, held a very brief and agitated explanation, convinced him that whatever shouting he wanted done would be better left for a while... and then the two of them were on the way out, Shippou dialling a number on his phone on the way.

……………………………

On the other side of town, Goshinki was flipping burgers. He and Kagura ran a very busy lunch restaurant together, which meant non-stop activity between roughly ten thirty and three o'clock. Thus he found nothing irregular when the door to the kitchen burst open as if an entire police squad was about to do a raid on the place.

"What's the order, Kaggie?" he asked, not lifting his eyes from the frying pan.

"Oh _bugger_," said a voice, with feeling. It did not sound like Kagura. It did not, in fact, belong to Kagura. Its owner bore not even a passing resemblance to Kagura, except maybe the hair. "Another false alarm? It's three a week now!"

Goshinki turned around, and grinned at Koga. "Another death threat?" he asked, with a tone to suggest that this was something very amusing (as opposed to something terrifying, which is usually the standard view on the matter). Shippou, who had just arrived as well, nodded affirmation and rolled his eyes. Goshinki laughed. "Guys," he said, "you know Kagura could beat every underground rat in arm wrestling any time of the day, and I'm no pixie either. We can take care of ourselves, how many times do I have to tell you? Plus," he added when the two YSA agents still looked dubious, "Jinenji looks in on us every other day to check that we still have all our limbs. We can deal with anything that comes along. Except possibly the tax department."

"Jinenji?" asked Shippou, looking surprised. "Why's he come?"

Goshinki shrugged. "Beats me. Guess he's just a paranoid nutter like the rest of you. Is that a criteria to work in the YSA or something? 'Cos in that case I'm quitting." He grinned at them, and turned back to his burgers. "Cool dude though, Jinenji. We took a beer together the other night, and I have to say he's a great guy, for a plod. He and Kaggie seem to have hit it off too..."

"Goshinki, do I pay you to gossip?" asked Kagura from the doorway. She was carrying a stack of dirty plates, and looked stressed out and irritated.

"Don't think you do, Kaggie," said Goshinki calmly. "On the other hand, you don't actually pay me for anything."

"Smart-ass," muttered Kagura, but not entirely ill-meaning. "And stop calling me Kaggie, I hate it."

"Because it reminds of an incident in kindergarten when you were five years old and... wait a minute... hey, are you blocking me?"

"You know, I _really hate_ your damn mind-reading..."

Shippou, ever the gentleman, hastened forward to unburden her from the dishes. "That's a cute dress, Kagura," he said, to distract her from her brother's mocking snigger. She looked surprised for a second, then smiled happily and twirled around.

"You think so? It's the uniform, just arrived today. I'm glad you like it, I spent ages designing it and... aaah!" she suddenly yelled, the smile disappearing to make way for a slightly panicked expression. "I don't have time for this! Goshinki, party of five just arrived – two lunch specials, one pasta of the day and two number thirteen. Get to it, they look official. Might be reviewers." And she was gone again, the door to the kitchen swinging slightly in her wake. Goshinki rolled his eyes.

"She always gets like this around lunch," he explained. "Although when Jinenji comes over she somehow _always_ finds the time to sit down for a coffee." He winked conspiratorially, turned back to his burgers and then went on, "You know what they say: never try to run a restaurant with your better half or a close friend – you'll end up hating each other. If it wasn't for the fact that we've worked closely together for many years now and are pretty used to it, we would probably have killed each other already. She can be a right little bitch when she's in a bad temper..."

"I heard that!" yelled Kagura. She came up to the small window that led out into the restaurant to collect two plates of pasta, and stuck her head in to glare at the three of them. "Stop being a jerk and a nosy bugger, Goshinki. And you two – " Koga and Shippou jumped guiltily – "stop chortling like that. It's because _you_ feel the need to steal my brother three days a week we are so stressed on the days he actually is here. We have to prepare twice as much on the days we can use him, and it's _all your fault_." She pouted at them, resting her arms on the small sill. Shippou stepped forwards and grinned his _"I'm just an adorable youngster. Can you hate this face?"_-grin.

"You know we need Goshinki to help catch that boil on the face of demonity," he said, indicating Naraku. "And we need you, too, to be able to testify and help get him into that striped shirt that's had his name on it for the last decade or so. It's because Naraku's still at large we're so jittery about you two. He doesn't really seem the type to forgive and forget. Anyway, once we've got him behind bars – and if Kagome gets her way, chained up _and_ gagged _and_ tortured ever so often with boy band music on full volume – you'll be able to have your brother back and we'll probably stop bugging you as well. Although," he added with the characteristic fox sense of mischief, "that might of course mean that Jinenji won't have any excuse to come round anymore."

Kagura stuck out her tongue, but grinned. "It's lucky for you that you are so cute," she said. "Otherwise I would be sorely tempted to smack some manners into that pretty little head of yours. Oh well... aaah! The customers!" She grabbed the pasta plates, turned on her heel and rushed off as if her skirt was on fire, leaving the guys chuckling behind her (although not too loudly this time).

……………………………

"So," said Koga as they left the restaurant with one take-away burger each, "yet another wasted trip. Although we did get lunch, that was nice of him. Hey, we really have to work out some kind of system to separate the false alarms from the ones that actually have a grain of truth in them..."

"You are _so_ clever," said Shippou, positively dripping with sarcasm. "What a _good_ idea. Why haven't I thought of it before? Oh wait – I have! Come on Koga, we get a dozen messages from snouts, old contacts and general lowlife every day. You think I haven't learnt to sort through them by now?"

"So what about this one, then?" asked Koga, a tad aggressively since he felt stupid. (You'd think he'd be used to it, but no.) "You seemed to think it was so serious before, but it was obviously a dead end."

"I'm surprised too," said Shippou, frowning. "The one who wrote is the same one who tipped us off about the jewel theft. He's a sure card, one of Yura's contacts, and he always has serious tips. I wonder if we've missed something..."

"Come on, we checked through the entire restaurant! No one could have hidden anywhere – not from this conk." Koga tapped his nose with pride.

"Guess you're right," said Shippou dubiously. Then he shrugged, shaking the doubt off. "It's a nice little place they've got there. They got some help through Inu-yasha to set it up, didn't they?"

"Yeah, he had some contacts in the restaurant business. The guy has contacts _everywhere_, for chrissake... anyway, they've done well for themselves, I have to say. Hope they get good reviews."

"If those guys _were_ reviewers," grinned Shippou. "Those five looked more like the Mafia to me. I mean; dark suits, slicked-back hair and _sunglasses_? What kind of people wear sunglasses inside? And in winter to boot?"

"Only two kinds of people – blind guys and assassins!" laughed Koga.

Shippou didn't laugh. "What did you just say?" he asked slowly.

"I said, blind guys and – " Koga paused in mid-sentence, replaying it in his own mind and suddenly noticing the same thing as his colleague.

" – assassins?" finished Shippou.

They stared at each other, struck momentarily speechless by their own carelessness.

"Oh _fuck_," said Koga, as the door to the restaurant exploded into splinters.

……………………………

Hello! The YSA is back; bigger, better and badder than last time. Yay! There will be thrilling rooftop chases (possibly), puzzling enigmas (naturally) and romance (hard to avoid). There will be more characters, and more screening time for many of the old. There will be… alright, I'll stop acting like a salesperson (because I'm aware I'm not all that good at it).

I will not be able to be as frequent with updates as I would like, because a) I'm working quite a lot right now and when I finish work I'm usually so beat I can hardly make myself dinner, let alone start messing around with the computer and b) I live with three other girls, with whom I must fight tooth and nail to get at the mentioned computer. (Yes, that second reason was a huge exaggeration.) I will try, however. Promise.

Hope you liked this first chapter of YSA: the Sequel and hope to see you for the next one!


	2. Across the Atlantic Sea

Across the Atlantic Sea

"The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain," sang Kagome, shaking her head like a wet dog. Inu-yasha followed suit, and managed to make the imitation an even more accurate one.

"That would be quite funny if it wasn't the fourth time you said it," he said, grabbing his hair with his hands and squeezing the last water out. "I thought Spain was supposed to be, well, sunny... and nice... and full of bulls, for some reason. And I think there are Piña Coladas involved, too."

"It's the middle of winter. Spain, like many other countries, has something we call _seasons_," said Kagome idly. "Although you're partly right – apparently this has been the rainiest month they've had in a century." She looked at his ponytail in consideration and then took hold of her own mane, measuring the length from tip to root with her free hand. "I never thought I'd get myself a boyfriend with longer hair than myself. How do you manage to keep it so even?"

"I am not going to discuss my hairdressing habits with you. I'm your boyfriend, not your girlfriend. Hey, are we getting anywhere with this?" He was not referring to their rain/hair conversation, but to their investigation, which after a whole week in Madrid hadn't turned up anything. "I mean, really? Not that I don't enjoy getting soaked every day on innumerable fruitless forays for information, but I'd like to concentrate on what is actually important."

"I agree." Kagome filled the electric kettle with water and put it on, shedding her jacket onto the chair. They were staying in a pretty dingy little motel – their budget, although generous for the CIA, was not large enough to allow for extravaganza and the comfort was not five-star, so to speak. But they had a kettle, which had proved its worth more than once by providing instant coffee as a soothing balm after long days out in the rain. "Maybe we should move on. The trail seems to be stone cold here. And besides, I'm getting tired of these snobbish guys laughing at my Spanish all the time. So what's our next target, if we decide to give it up here?"

"Venice, Italy. He's likely to have a lot of contacts there through Kanna."

"Alright then! Venice it is." Kagome took out two cups, put three spoons of instant coffee in each and poured the hot water over it. Inu-yasha sneezed, and then accepted his cup gratefully. Kagome grinned. "And we thought we were so clever when we decided to go on this trip," she said ironically, "to get to see a bit of Europe as well as looking for Naraku. It's days like these I almost wish we'd stayed at home instead. Only then I remember what a bore it would be to sit behind that damn desk every day."

"Yeah," Inu-yasha agreed, "it hasn't really been very exciting there lately, has it? I mean, the worst thing that happens is probably a death threat for Kagura that later turns out to be a fake, as usual."

"I kind of miss the guys though. What do you think they're doing right now?"

"At this very moment? Well, it's noon over there now, right? So they're probably all at lunch or something. Except for Ginta and Hakkaku who are watching a Matrix movie, and Shippou who's doing something that involves circuitry. Oh, and Koga is yelling at somebody."

He was completely wrong except for one point.

……………………………

"Get down, you idiot!" yelled Koga, waving wildly at Shippou. "You don't have any experience of this kind of thing, you'll be hurt!"

"Have to get experience some time, right?" Shippou replied, and jumped as a bullet whizzed past him. They were hidden behind an overturned table, being shot at most rudely by the five assassins. From the expert way they handled themselves and their weapons, Koga had guessed they were part of the Saimyoshi gang – the most effective and most expensive killers-for-hire in town. "Can you see Kagura and Goshinki?"

"No, and I can't concentrate on them right now because I'm too busy wondering whether you'll be in large enough pieces to gather up easily when this is over! Get out of here, go and get help or something as long as you get out of the way! You're useless here!"

"That so?" asked Shippou, and with apparent disregard for death, peeked over the table's edge. He crouched down again quickly just in time to avoid another shot. "Well, you might not have been training your demon powers lately, but I have. Give me just a sec more..." He peeked up again, slightly longer this time as his eyes darted round the other end of the restaurant to take in all the information possible about the gang members. Koga dragged him down just in time.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed!" he exclaimed.

"Wait..." Shippou scrunched his nose up in concentration. Koga stuck his head up briefly to fire his gun again and was about to duck back down when he felt a hand grab his shoulder and drag him to his feet.

"What the – " Koga began, and stopped suddenly as he looked into the face of a Saimyoshi member.

"Got him," declared the guy, holding up a hand to stop his friends from shooting. He gripped Koga's shoulder tight and then hurled him away, onto the floor. Two shots rang out in the suddenly silent restaurant, and then he turned back to his companions, face void of emotion. "Let's go after the target now that this has been gotten rid off."

There was a pause. The three Saimyoshi members on the other side of the restaurant did not change expression, but they didn't lower their weapons either. "Tres," said one of them at last. "We just saw you take Cinco and go after the target. You were the one who knew where she'd be hiding herself."

There was an equally long pause this time, then Tres said, "There was a fox demon with the wolf. They have the power of imitation. You took him for me. Which way did he go?"

One of the gang members pointed, and lowered his weapon slightly.

"The shelter is over that way," said Tres, and pointed in almost straight the other direction. "Out the side door; there's a shed in the yard. A trap door in the floor leads to an underground road towards the train station. The mouth of the tunnel is blocked in the other end, so she won't be able to get out, but it branches off on four different locations. She will have gone down any one of these. We take one tunnel each. Leave the first one. I'll head down that one when I've taken care of my leg. I was shot."

"And Cinco?"

"If he can't handle a kitsune, he should be left behind."

The three Saimyoshi members nodded, and left through the door. Tres sat down slowly and made a show out of ripping his trouser leg apart, presumably to get at the wound. The skin underneath, however, was smooth and unharmed. Checking to see that the other three were well out of earshot, he let go of his trousers and kicked the still form of the YSA agent.

"You can get up now," he said.

"Gods, don't scare me like that," Koga exclaimed, sitting up and looking with undisguised terror at the two bullet holes that had planted themselves a mere inch from his head. "They couldn't see me behind the table anyway, did you have to shoot so _close_?"

"Sorry," said Shippou, changing back into himself with a small pop. He grinned apologetically and offered Koga a hand up, putting his gun back into its holster. "Seems I don't have as much control over this thing as I thought. Now, shall we go and save Kagura?"

"What do you mean you don't have as much control as you thought."

"Come on, hurry up! The real Tres and Cinco will have caught up to them by now!"

"Wait, Shippou."

"I'll go on before you then!"

"Wait, do you mean to say you weren't sure of how close you were to me? Why are you running away? SHIPPOU!"

……………………………

While Shippou and Koga ran through the restaurant towards Kagura and Goshinki's emergency shelter (the former running a lot faster than the latter for fear of serious injury if the older YSA member caught up with him), Sesshoumaru was trying to decide on a plan of action. He could retreat, but that would give his opponent the advantage of confidence and additional time to plan his move. He could also attack, but then he'd move away from what seemed to be, at the moment, the strategically best position for him to be in. To do nothing was not an option. He had to decide, and he had to decide now. As it was, he was being backed into a corner, one he would have no chance of getting out of if he let his enemy get the advantage now.

Suddenly deciding, he narrowed his eyes in concentration and whipped his hand out from where it had been hidden inside his sleeve.

"Knight to E4," he said, and suited the action to the word.

"And you lose, Sesshoumaru," said Hiten, taking the knight with his queen and at the same time placing his YSA colleague in check mate. "You should have used your bishop instead."

"Would that have given me a chance to win?"

"No, but you would have lost less spectacularly."

"Damn it!" Sesshoumaru knocked the king over irritably, in the same motion acknowledging his loss and showing his annoyance. "Why are you so good at this?"

"I'm not," said Hiten calmly. "I'm an appalling chess player. Manten starts laughing every time I move a piece. However, you are an _extraordinarily_ appalling chess player."

"Feh."

"That sounded like your brother. How is he, by the way?"

"Good, I'd guess." Sesshoumaru retrieved his lost pieces from Hiten's side of the board (this was quite a lot of pieces considering the very short duration of the game) and started setting them up again in their right places. "They're in Spain right now – there was something about an old contact of Naraku's that he might have been hiding out at. I don't think they've found anything yet though, and they've been there for a week or something already. Gods, that man is not easy to get hold of."

"With the whole world to hide in, are you surprised?" Hiten turned around in his seat. "Oi, Manten, could you bring me a beer?"

"What's the magic word," grunted Manten, completely absorbed in a card house construction.

Hiten frowned in confusion. "Beer?" he tried.

Manten rolled his eyes at him once before returning his attention to the house (slightly wobbly). "I was thinking about 'please', but I guess that's the best you can do." He put the last two cards on the top delicately and grinned. "OK, now I'll get your beer. Want one myself anyway." He heaved himself out of his chair and Hiten turned back to the chess board, lazily putting his pieces into the right positions.

"So what are our nearest plans?" he asked, taking a pawn back from his opponent and looking for an empty spot to put it in. "It's been pretty quiet lately, hasn't it? You and Jaken have that environmental hazard thing to deal with, but that's pretty much finished... just the trial and stuff left... and we've got a smuggling coming in day after tomorrow over the Mexican border but after that we haven't got anything planned. Isn't there anything to amuse ourselves with? Ah, thanks." He took his beer from Manten and raised his eyebrows inquisitively towards Sesshoumaru, who shook his head and indicated his still half-full bottle.

"I don't know," he then said, yawning widely. "It's pretty dead. Crime's on vacation. (Hope it rains on the bastards.) I haven't heard about the smuggling though, when's that? Do you want me to come along?"

"Nah, it's not a nose job. Electronic stuff, you know, palm computers and some other high-tech stuff... that's why we got it. Electricity is our _thing_. And it'll be good to use a bit of power again, don't you think so?" He tossed the last remark over his shoulder towards his brother, who nodded in agreement and then looked at his phone.

"Hey," he said, "I've got a missed call. Did my phone ring?"

"Oh yeah," said Hiten carelessly. "Now that you mention it – it did before, when you were out getting the playing cards. I couldn't be bothered answering."

"Idiot," said Manten almost pleasantly, and called up his voice messages. Hiten yawned and turned back to Sesshoumaru.

"Anyway," he said, "we'll be out of town for three days, starting tomorrow, so you'll just have to find someone else to lose chess games to. Try Spiderman, he's never understood the difference between this and checkers so you might even have a chance to... well, if not win, at least get to a stalemate."

"OK." Sesshoumaru shrugged, and put the last chess piece in its place with a sigh. "Gods, I just wish there was something worthwhile to do. The apartment's empty, I haven't been to a decent party in months and work sucks. I am so bored."

Manten, who had been listening to the very urgent message left on his answering machine, put his phone down and grinned broadly. "Well, I know something that might amuse you," he said, in an off-hand sort of voice. When he saw that he held the attention of both the others he grinned yet wider and went on, "I just had a call from a colleague of ours that suggested they might need a little... reinforcement."

Hiten and Sesshoumaru considered this. "Will it be intellectually stimulating?" asked the latter finally.

"No."

"Will there be girls?"

"No."

"Will we get to beat someone up?"

"Yes."

"Alright, let's go."

……………………………

Meanwhile, Koga and Shippou had almost caught up with the two Saimyoshi members when a shot sounded and they both threw themselves flat on the floor to avoid it.

"Those guys are bloody _psychic_!" hissed Koga in frustration. "How did they know we were coming?"

"Um," said Shippou. "Because you're wearing steel-tipped boots that make about the same amount of noise as a small tank engine? Wait, sorry – two small tank engines."

"Oh." Koga twisted his body around to look at his feet. "You seem to be right. Aargh!" He flattened himself against the floor again and rolled sideways to avoid the (hair-raisingly accurate) shots of the two remaining Saimyoshi members. "Look, I don't know how we're going to do this, but we have to stop those guys from getting to Kagura at any cost. I'm thinking maybe we ought to... oh, not again."

Shippou stood up and kicked him in the side. This time he was wearing the face of one of the three assassins they had fooled earlier. "I have him," he called out, pulling the wolf demon roughly to his feet. Making sure that the two real Saimyoshi had stopped firing, he walked forwards slowly, dragging Koga behind him. Tres and Cinco – as they were apparently called – looked on with no change of expression.

"Where is the kitsune?" asked Shippou, letting go of Koga who immediately collapsed onto the floor, holding his side as if the kick had really been violent. "Your companion, where did he go?"

"I – " Koga started, then yelled hoarsely as Shippou administered another kick to his stomach. "He went on before me," Koga gasped, curling his body to protect himself from another blow.

"Did you see the fox?" Shippou asked the assassins in front of him. They looked at each other.

"He hasn't passed us," said the one called Tres after a pause.

"He and the wolf ran after you," Shippou persisted. "Were you two ever separated?"

"Neither of us is a false," said Cinco, immediately understanding the insinuation. "We were apart only once. But to be sure – give the codes. I'm Cinco, 5-GSO."

"Tres, 3-KWT," said Tres, giving his code in turn.

Shippou swallowed. "Dos, 2-RFQ," he hazarded, basing his guess on his knowledge of cryptograms and giving the three-letter code corresponding with the other two. Tres and Cinco looked at each other again.

"It is the right code," said Cinco. Tres nodded. Shippou, thanking god for all the code-breaking experience his love for computers had given him, relaxed and was about to speak when Tres took two steps forward and pressed his gun against Shippou's forehead.

"But your name is Cuatro," he said.

Goshinki could not have arrived at a better time.

……………………………

Hello! Sorry I've taken a while to update – our Internet died a couple of days ago and we only managed to revive it today.

The reason the Saimyoshi are named after 1-5 in Spanish – um, no reason. I just wanted them to have numbers as names, and I happen to like the sound of Spanish.

**Jason Wu:** Thank you for the warm words! I sure am glad to be back, too.

**Midori Aoi:** _Of course_ I remember Haroni Asuka Kiba (I'm pretty sure I got that right). I don't have anything planned for now but there may of course be small part in there somewhere. ;) I'm very happy to hear from you again!


	3. Taking the Sting out of the Saimyoshi

Taking the Sting out of the Saimyoshi

"You guys _suck_," stated Hiten, once they were all gathered back in the large restaurant room. "You couldn't even handle a couple of thugs? Sheesh!"

"They are not _a couple of thugs_," said Koga in a voice of forced calm. "They are the freaking Saimyoshi! They killed the head of the Mafia. They murdered that famous actor guy who had so much security on his house that his own wife was caught and interrogated by the security guards at least four times a week. For all I know they could be behind the Kennedy assassination! They are professional bloody killers!"

"We beat the three we met easily," said Hiten.

"Well, yes. Because you saw them coming back across the yard, hid behind the door and slammed it into their face when they were on their way in."

"Ten points on that one!" laughed Hiten and turned to his brother, who gave him a high five and laughed along with him. Koga shook his head and sighed.

"Well, I'm only glad you turned up like you did, Goshinki," he said, turning to the ogre. "Otherwise we would have been screwed. But you seem to have had your fair share of danger, too. Did they ever come close to you?"

"What, you mean because of this?" asked Goshinki, pointing to his cheek. It was sporting a bleeding cut, which thankfully didn't seem very deep. "Naw, that wasn't the Saimyoshi. It's thanks to Kagura. She got a bit upset when I wouldn't let her go kick assassin ass."

Koga looked with raised eyebrows at Kagura, who snorted angrily. "Yeah, how many times do I have to tell you," she said, "I am not a doll! I can bloody well take care of myself! I'm not some cute little airhead who has to be _protected_ because she's too weak and bloody stupid to do anything harder than blow-dry her hair on her own..."

"No one thinks you're weak, Kagura," Shippou interrupted. The rest of the YSA members, who had all at some point or another stupidly challenged her to a head butting match, shook their heads with emphasis. (Hiten, whose challenge had happened as late as the day before, was less emphatic than the others on account of his still smarting forehead.) "But it's you they're after! We're just obstacles in the way – I mean the only reason we aren't all dead is that they're not giving us their best. You, on the other hand... you are the one they've got their sights on."

Kagura pouted. "I _hate_ being a key witness," she said grumpily. "And look at the restaurant! It looks worse than before the renovation! And what about the customers? I can't be certain, of course, but I have just an inkling that we've lost ourselves a couple of regulars today. What did you do with the bastard killers? Because I want to do mean things to them with a knife. Preferably a blunt knife."

"Oh yeah, what are we going to do with those guys?" asked Koga, turning to Sesshoumaru (but ignoring the disturbing suggestions from Kagura, who was now elaborating on just _what_ she meant when she said 'mean'). "Hand them to the police?"

"If you don't mind, I'd like to avoid the police," Goshinki cut in. "I'm not really supposed to be out of jail for another couple of decades or something. The only reason I'm out is that Inu-yasha pulled some strings. So really, I would appreciate it if we didn't give the cops a reason to notice me."

"Right," said Sesshoumaru, taking charge of the situation immediately. "Shippou, go call Jinenji. Tell him to take care of his boss and ask him if he can find someone in the bomb squad to help us out... we'll need a story for the blown door. Why did they plant a bomb here, anyway?" he asked, as Shippou went outside to get better coverage. Kagura coughed.

"Actually, that was one of ours," she said apologetically. "One of the guys fired at me as I was passing the door and it activated an old anti-burglar trap. If anyone tries to force the door open, it explodes. Typical Naraku. No simple alarm and waiting for the cops to catch whoever broke in for him – no, blow the guy's fingers off instead."

"Typical Naraku?"

"Yeah, this used to be a Spider Club joint before I bought it. There are still some strange and vindictive little traps like the door bomb hidden here and there. That was one of the last ones though. We just hadn't gotten around to deactivating it."

"But that's great! There's our cover story." Sesshoumaru frowned in consideration, putting the explanation together. "You are terribly shocked, of course. You had no idea the place you _innocently_ (stress this) bought contained something that dangerous, and you will instantly be taking steps to clean out the restaurant from anything similar. The door bomb went off completely by mistake – someone yanked on the door handle too hard. The panic was instant and everyone ran before they had time to understand what had happened – this is an area which is known to be a bit dangerous, after all, so no one will be surprised that they were out of here without waiting to see what was going on. Eye witness accounts about men with guns will be put down to shock and confusion, if anyone bothers to tell. We might have to bribe a couple though, so addresses – if possible – of the regulars at least would be good." He paused again, thinking. "There are probably some cops on the way already – you will not be able to talk to them, Kagura, being so deeply shocked, poor girl. (You might drop by the station tomorrow and give testimony, however.) They will instead be told to speak with your cousin Hiten, who is taking care of you and calming you down."

"Uh, Sesshoumaru," Hiten interrupted, "not a good idea. We don't want her to be associated with someone who's been in trouble with the law. And I've done my fair share of illegalities."

"You're right. Cousin Manten, then."

"Same as Hiten," rumbled Manten.

"Oh yeah, how stupid of me. You do everything together." Sesshoumaru hesitated. "Cousin Koga?"

"Um..." Koga scratched his neck, looking embarrassed. "Called a couple of guys from the force stupid lazy corrupted pigs who get off on life as miserable as possible for regular folk last week. I'm not too popular there right now."

Sesshoumaru sighed. "Don't we have _anyone_ in the agency with a clean record?"

"Well, there's you."

"I'll be explaining."

"Shippou, then."

"I thought of him from the start," Sesshoumaru admitted. "But we always use him for this! According to us, he's related to almost half the city." He sighed again. "But I guess we have no other choice. Cousin Shippou it is, then."

"And me?" asked Goshinki.

"You are anywhere but here. Shoo."

"Then it's just the assassins left," said Koga, as Goshinki left (no doubt feeling nothing but lucky over a suddenly free afternoon). "What about them?"

"Dunno." Sesshoumaru shrugged. "Hiten and Manten, take care of them and dump them somewhere."

"With pleasure," said the brothers, and went to fetch the five assassins who had been tied up and left in the yard. Sesshoumaru pursed his lips thoughtfully, ticked off items on his fingers and finally smiled.

"That's all, I think," he said, looking very pleased with himself. Koga frowned.

"But why are we here?" he asked.

"Lunch. We simply _love_ their burgers. Although I don't think _you_ are here... seeing as the plods hate you at the moment... no, go back to the office instead and write a report. And send Shippou back in on your way out." He smiled at Koga, who glared back at him. He hated reports. Sensing that he had no working argument with which to counter the suggestion however, he left with no fuss and only a minimal amount of grumbling. Sesshoumaru smirked victoriously, a smirk that faded as he met Kagura's scowling expression. Oh, of course. Her role in the drama would probably not be what she had wished for.

"I'll go practice on being shocked, then," she said bitingly, proving Sesshoumaru right. "Should I cry? Or is it enough if I just hug myself and shiver for a bit."

"Crying never hurts."

"Does too. This mascara runs something frightful. I'll look like that tiger demon, what's-his-name..."

"Stripes?"

"That's the kitty."

Sesshoumaru suddenly perked his ears, hearing distant sirens. "Alright, here comes the cavalry," he said. "Go into the kitchen and put some tea on – your thoughtful cousin Shippou made you some."

"I love my cousin Shippou."

"Good girl. That's the spirit." He waved her out into the kitchen, then as Shippou came hurrying back in sent him after her (completely ignoring the fox demon's exasperated "Me _again_?"). He then proceeded to right all the over-turned tables and put them back into their position, sweep bullets shells and other incriminating evidence away and stack all the chairs against one wall. He was wiping down the tables when the scream of tyres pulled to a quick halt was heard outside. Straightening up, he moved one last plate from the table he was working on, pushed the hair out of his face and greeted the police with a smile.

Meanwhile, in the tent of Madame Vutout, the same was doing a reading.

"I see a group… five… no... yes, five? It's confusing... but there is an animal of some sort – maybe demonic… they're walking slowly, with stealth… the night man, he is not there… there is a… scream… they approach their target…"

"Where is it?" asked the newspaper reporter carefully.

"Big… tall building… a coffee machine in the entrance… broken…"

"Could be any of the big corporations," mumbled the cameraman. The reporter shushed him irritably. But too late – Madame Vutout blinked once and shook her head, breaking the trance.

"It will be on a night within the next week," she said, in her normal voice now instead of the deep, hoarse one she used while fortune telling. "During the second night guard's shift. That's all I could see, before I was pulled out of the trance."'

"Have you any idea of where it will be?" asked the reporter. Madame Vutout shook her head seriously.

"Not anymore than I told you. A business center of some sort. I don't know the big corporations in the city, so I can't help you."

The reporter sighed. "Alright, thank you," she said. "We may return at a later date. Thanks for your time. Nobby, if you'd be so kind…" She left the tent and her cameraman paused for a second to give the fortune-teller her fee, then followed.

"A waste of time?" he asked.

"She's an actress, you have to admit that," answered the reporter. She opened her bag and stuffed her notebook and pen into it, then fished out a packet of cigarettes. "You haven't got a lighter by any chance? I'm dying for a smoke…"

Nobby, who had never smoked so much a single cigarette in his life, took out a lighter. He was a well-prepared man.

"Thank you." The reporter lit her cigarette and took a long, satisfied drag before returning to the fortune telling. "Don't know if this is anything to work with. It seemed like a good tip, but I thought that Madame – what was it? Ah, Vutout – she seemed a bit too foggy to be of any real interest. If she'd said anything specialized, that'd have been something else…" She shrugged. "Well, we'll just have to wait and see if any big break-in happens next week. If it does, we'll see then if we can make a story of it. We could go and check if there are any business centers with broken coffee machines in the entrance though, if we ever have an hour or two to kill."

"Alright. Let me just take a picture or two of the circus area, and then we'll be off. You up for lunch?"

"Am I up for lunch? I'm _dying_ for lunch."

"Somehow I anticipated you saying exactly that."

…………………………

Koga looked up as Shippou came back to the office, and suppressed a smirk. "How's your cousin?" he asked. "Heard she was taken a bit to hysterics earlier."

"Screw you," muttered Shippou. "She bit me when I told the policeman she had always been a sensitive girl, and then started crying when I yelled at her. I thought that cop would murder me. I'm sure he would have, too, if he hadn't been busy figuring out a way to ask Kagura to dinner without seeming unprofessional."

"Well, at least you got out of writing the report…"

"Or not. Have to write one about the police encounter. Sesshoumaru claimed he has a chronic inability to write on a keyboard so it's up to me."

"You poor, cheated bastard."

Shippou nodded. "I know. That's the fate of the youngest agency member. I'm thinking about writing a novel about it: _My life as a doormat_. Might be a bestseller one day." He sighed irritably, then looked around the office. "Where's Royakan? Off buying pizza?"

"Don't you know it. He'll bring enough for you as well, if I know him right. Hell, he'll probably bring enough to feed half the agency…"

As if they wanted to test that statement, The Nerds chose that moment to enter the office.

The door was kicked open and Hakkaku fell through it. He landed on the floor, curling up as if in pain. Ginta followed and planted himself in the doorway, from where he stared malevolently at his second cousin twice removed (the official relation of the two – although the family ties of the wolf demon clan were so tangled they could just as easily be brothers, or possibly married) as he slowly and painstakedly got to his feet.

"Why, Hakkaku, why? Why do you _persist_?" said Ginta, in a dead on imitation of Hugo Weaving. Hakkaku regarded him seriously.

"Because I choose to," he said.

A second of meaningful silence followed. Shippou, who had recently seen the third Matrix movie and was anticipating the subsequent fight which would lead to YSA agent Ginta a.k.a. Matrix Agent Smith getting punched across the room, hastened towards them in an attempt to save the office, but Ginta started forward…

…and was caught by the shoulder and pulled back as Royakan stepped up to the doorway. "I've got pizzas here," he said. "Behave yourselves or you won't get any."

"Ooh, pizza?" The Matrix was forgotten in a second.

"Thank you, Royakan," said Koga, rising from his seat to help his colleague out with the pile of pizza cartons and smiling. A smile that froze, however, as he saw who Royakan had in tow. It was quite a large number of who, all underage. "Oh no, Roy… what have we said about bringing your kids to work?"

"They finished school!" was Royakan's excuse. He dumped some of the pizzas onto Matrix nerd no. 1 and 2 – who happily started searching through the various cartons for a Pepperoni – handed a couple to Shippou and put the rest on the desk. Koga started to object, met the unblinking eyes of eight primary school children, and gave up.

"Fine," he said grudgingly. "But only over lunch, you hear me?"

" 'Course," said Royakan genially, not intending to follow the warning in any way whatsoever. "I see Ship's back. How did he do?"

"Fine, as usual. Kagura was probably one of the most ungrateful cousins he's ever had though. Apparently she bit him."

"I'm not surprised." Royakan shook his head sadly, although ruined the effect somewhat by grinning from ear to ear. "It must be hard for him, looking so cute and earnest. Always having to play the concerned relative. Well, at least it works with the plods – hard not to like that face. My kids love him, too."

"The poor bastard," said Koga, with feeling. He looked with true sympathy at his young colleague, who currently had two kids hanging around his neck and one clambering into his lap. Strangely enough, Shippou did not seem to overmuch mind this. Well, he was probably used to having at least one of Roy's youngsters clinging to him.

"I know my eldest is pretty fond of him," said Royakan thoughtfully, as if he'd read Koga's mind. Shippou, who heard him, visibly stiffened. "I think she sees him as her older brother or something…"

"Hey, did we ever hear what happened at the trial with the Wachowski brothers?" Koga interrupted (making a mental note to one day demand payback for all the times he had covered Shippou's back). He turned to Hakkaku, who was dangling a piece of pizza above the head of a disgruntled Royakan jr, saying _"Down here, I make the rules. Down here, I make the threats. Down here… I am God."_ "Guys, how did the trial go?"

"The trial? Oh. It was interesting, to say the least," grinned Ginta.

"Haroni – you know, the girl who worked for Toto-sai before, is a distant cousin of ours – had a complete breakdown, crying loudly and shouting stuff like _'This was my one shot at acting, and if the movie is sunk I'll never be able to have an acting career and then what will my poor, sick mother and fifteen younger siblings live off if I can't provide for them will they have to WALK THE STREETS?'_," Hakkaku said, grinning as well. "I think at least three quarters of the jury were starting to consider giving us right in the matter if only to shut her up, when she suddenly started laughing and said, _'See? I'm a born actor. Come on, don't ruin my debut!'_ "

"In the end, we were let off with a mild warning by promising we'd never do it again," Ginta cut in.

"So we'll be taking some time off over New Year's to do Matrix: The Arctic Incident," Hakkaku concluded, holding his hand up for a high five. "We _rock_!"

"Shippou, get away from them," said Koga, in a tone of mock concern. "It has not yet been proven that stupidity isn't contagious and I would like to protect you from it."

Shippou laughed lightly, but didn't voice the opinion that if that were true, Koga ought to be in quarantine himself. "Guys," he then said to the cousins, "I was wondering about this chick who's wolf demon… thought you might be able to give me some stuff on her."

"Your bit of fluff, is it?" asked Ginta with a grin, as Hakkaku swiped another Pepperoni piece right under the nose of one of the kids and was promptly bitten on the arm. "We'll get the info like a piece of cake. Good luck with her. Hey, wait a minute – that means we'll be relatives!"

"No, wait, wait." Shippou flushed. "I didn't mean it like that! She's an employee at a private, high security bank that was broken into a few days ago, and she's a prime suspect, unfortunately. I told Jinenji I'd try and help him out a bit with the investigation and… what? Why are you glaring at me like that?"

"We are not going to give you _anything_ that might help the plods get her," said Ginta simply. "Never."

"Give us the name though," Hakkaku added, "and we'll do all we can to prove her innocent."

"Yeah, spill. Who is she?"

"Ayame," said Shippou, looking chastised. In hindsight, asking Ginta and Hakkaku to help locking up a wolf demon – technically a family member – was not that good an idea. He should probably have paid more heed when Koga was so short with him earlier.

Ginta and Hakkaku looked at each other, and then at Koga. "Ayame?" said Hakkaku, and Ginta went on, "Isn't she that chick you – "

"_Yes_," growled Koga. "Keep talking and I'll show you the reviews of Matrix Revolutions."

"You _wouldn't_!"

"Anyway, Shippou," said Koga, "I'm not going to hinder you or anything, but if you want to help the plods out you do it yourself and on your own time, which is not right now because right now I want you to get back to that computer in the second room. It should be up and running by tomorrow at the latest."

"Wha – tomorrow?" Shippou dropped the pizza piece he was holding. It hit the carpet with a splat and was snatched by a seven-year-old before the tomato sauce had even stopped flying. "Koga, I have a report to write! And do you know how long it takes to set up a computer?"

"Plug it into the wall and you're done," said Koga. Shippou winced. Computer nerds had words for people like Koga. Most of them would be censored on daytime television.

"Well, yes..." he said, "only, you see... you can't just... I mean, I have to..."

"Fine, just get on with it." Koga waved a hand vaguely and irritably, and then turned on his fellow wolf demons. "And you two get going, too! I don't care if it's your day off – if you're in the office you either do some work or get out. (With you two, I'd prefer the latter, but...) And now that you've gotten pizza you may as well earn it, too." He glared at them – they grinned – and then snatched up his coat.

"And where are you going, then?" asked Royakan, lifting one of his smallest into his knee. Koga made an evasive noise.

"Out. Going to hear a witness."

"Oh, OK. Go for it."

"Give our regards to Ayame," added Ginta casually. Very carefully, both Royakan and Hakkaku avoided meeting his eyes.

"Sure." Koga shrugged his coat on, stuck his hands into the pockets and nodded goodbye. "Hold the fort while I'm gone, Royakan. And get your kid down from that shelf before she finds Hiten's private stash because it'll probably make her damned hyperactive, to say the least."

He left.

His colleagues counted slowly to ten.

He came back, blushing red and positively fuming.

"I said I was going to hear a witness, not meet Ayame!"

"Whatever you say," chorused the other three, and grinned.

……………………………

Later that night it knocked on the door to the Spider Club. When the door guards opened they found five furious members of the Saimyoshi gang lying against the wall, tied together and gagged with duck tape. On top of the bundle was a note, on which was written in Hiten's neat script,

_Not to our liking. Do not bother sending the next edition, either – we have gone off assassins lately. Bit too dour for our tastes. No, seriously – tell Naraku that he is a pathetic piece of work, alright?_

_By the way, your new door guards suck. _

None of the door guards reacted to this. They might have done, though, if they'd been able to read. As it was, no one bothered to tell them what the letter had said, mainly because they liked their nose the shape it was.

……………………………

About Ayame – I haven't actually made her acquaintance, since I read the manga and don't watch the anime. I have, however, seen her around the net, and what little information I have on her is largely from fan sites, after a bit of research. But she fitted so well into the story here, I just had to have her… I apologize in advance for any mistakes in portraying her.

Sorry for the delay in updates, too. I've been working a lot lately. On the one hand, I'm beat; on the other, I'll have lots of money for Christmas presents. Yay:)


	4. Busted

Busted

Sesshoumaru woke up at seven o'clock exactly the morning after the Saimyoshi attack, and went back to sleep from pure shock. When he awoke half an hour later he realized something was deeply wrong. After pondering the matter of his all-too-early awakening for another half hour he was at last able to put his finger on it: he'd gone to sleep at six the evening before, being severely exhausted from lying to cops all afternoon. Satisfied that there was a proper explanation for his waking up at a normal hour – meaning that the world hadn't gone completely insane or, stranger yet, he had developed a proper sleep pattern – he got up and decided to use the morning for work. (In other words, he was still a bit sleepy.)

When he arrived at the office at a quarter to nine to pick up a couple of things, he found Koga already there and messing up their files.

"Morning!" he called. Koga turned, gaped and dropped everything in his hands. (Fifteen yellow files, half a kilo of loose paper and three unpaid bills.)

"What the _hell_ are you doing up at this hour?" he asked, looking stunned.

"Nothing special. Woke up pretty early and felt like getting a fresh start to the day," Sesshoumaru replied, acting as if his standard time for waking up was at break of dawn at the latest, and not around noon which was actually the case. "I could say the same about you," he continued. "Are you on desk duty again, two days in a row? And in that case you are early."

"Nah, it's Spiderman and Myoga today," Koga answered. He coughed awkwardly. "Me, I was just, er, looking up some facts. There's a case that looked pretty interesting, a break-in at this bank... I was just a bit curious."

A memory stirred in Sesshoumaru's mind, of firstly something Shippou had said the day before and secondly something from a year or two previous... "Wait," he said. "That's the thing with her... Ayame, right? Weren't you and her some kind of..."

"Yes," sighed Koga. "You guys have the memory of elephants, I swear."

"So what happened? I thought she..."

"_Yes_," said Koga, rather more sharply.

"And now you're trying to find evidence of her innocence on your own time? How sweet. I mean, after that most guys wouldn't even..."

"But I do," snapped Koga. "I'm not going to let an innocent girl go to jail."

"Alright." Sesshoumaru shrugged, and decided not to press further since Koga was already quite flustered enough. He watched his blushing colleague for a while as he started gathering up the scattered files again, and then crouched down to help. "Want a hand?" he asked. "With the case, I mean. Well, of course I'm going to help you pick this up as well, but..."

Koga looked up sharply. "Why?"

Sesshoumaru shrugged again. "Haven't got anything better to do. I'm meeting Jaken at ten thirty but until then I'm free. Do you want to go through it with me? I might be able to help."

Koga hesitated for a full five seconds, but then he smiled. "Alright," he said. "The thing is..."

_Interrogation of one Ayame, wolf demon:_

_Inspector G: The interrogation is hereby begun, at 16:43. I am inspector G, hearing the prime suspect in what we like to call the Busted case, although unfortunately – as of yet – that refers to the bank and not the perpetrator. (chuckling) But anyway, here is the possible perpetrator right here with me. Say hi to the microphone, miss Ayame. _

_Ayame: Hi?_

_Inspector G: Great. Inspector here – check. Suspect here – check. Witness here... oh yeah, give a sign of life, Sergeant K._

_Sergeant K: (grunt)_

_Inspector G: ...good. Yeah. Witness here – check. That's all, right?_

_Sergeant K: (grunt)_

_Inspector G: Right. Ayame, where were you on the night of November the twenty-fourth?_

_Ayame: After finishing work at ten I went home. I spent the night in my apartment, watching Notting Hill. _

_Inspector G: See, that's where we don't believe you. How can you remember so clearly what you were doing nine days ago? Most people would be more like, "Uh, I'm not sure... let me think... on the twenty-fifth I went to that show so the twenty-fourth I must have been... uh, wait..." But not you. No, you know exactly what you were doing, you don't hesitate at all and you even know the name of the freaking movie. How is that, miss Ayame?_

_Ayame: The first time you asked me these questions was the day after the break-in, the twenty-fifth. It was not hard for me to then recall what movie I had seen the day before. The reason I can give this answer now without even a trace of hesitation is that this is the sixteenth time I've been asked the question. _

_Inspector G: Oh, so you want to play it tough? Alright. We've checked with the TV company, and it seems that Notting Hill was indeed showing late that night. The question is – were you watching it? Which is the best part in the movie?_

_Ayame: The song "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone" and Hugh Grant's accompanying walk through the seasons. _

_Inspector G: WRONG! The ending of course! It has humour, romance and Julia Roberts' trademark ear-to-ear-smile. Can't get any better than that! That clinches it – you didn't see it, i.e. you are a liar, i.e. you were the one who let the robbers into the Midnight Bank. Suck on that._

_Ayame: What?_

The Midnight Bank for Safe Deposits prided themselves on being a high class, high status and high security bank. Actually, add one more: high level of discreteness. Someone who for some reason or other didn't want to leave his real name did not have to do so. Every customer had his or her account handled through their own private bank accountant, meaning they never had to come into contact with more than one person of the staff. The staff, meanwhile, was through high wages and fat bonuses encouraged to keep a low profile, and most importantly keep their mouth firmly shut about anything and everything they might notice about their customers. Thus the Midnight Bank was a favourite amongst thieves, swindlers and all those other people who make a living out of breaking the law, and as such it was important that they keep a _very_ good reputation.

A full-blown police investigation was not the sort of attention the Midnight Bank was looking for, as Ayame had had explained to her by a very flustered and very, very pissed off bank manager.

What had happened on the twenty-fourth of November was as follows:

...actually, no one really knew. On the twenty-fifth of November the safe of Ayame's customer number eight – given name N. O. Webber – was found open and depressingly empty. Theft was suspected right from the start, firstly because no customer at the Midnight Bank would be so stupid as to leave their safe open, even if it was empty, and secondly because there was a note pinned to the wall above saying "Haha, suckers! Security my ass!"

N. O. Webber had already sued the bank for compensation. The bank manager had decided, not surprisingly, to settle matters outside the court. He had been forced to pay an outrageous sum of money and the bank's budget was now pretty much shot (as he had also see fit to inform Ayame, very loudly).

So far, everything was crystal clear – random robbery. Then the complications started.

Not a single alarm had been triggered in the building, and the Midnight Bank collected alarms like people collect stamps, or ex-girlfriends. There was no sign of forced entry anywhere, not even on the safe itself. For all the police could tell, it seemed as if someone had simply let the robbers into the bank.

"...And guess who had the late night shift on the twenty-fourth?" asked Koga.

"Employing Sherlockian methods," said Sesshoumaru seriously, "I would say we are looking at a female demon, probably wolf, of uncertain age. She will insist on wearing her hair in pigtails and will have had a relationship with..."

"Yes, yes," Koga interrupted, frowning in annoyance. "Ayame. Now, you need seven different passwords to get into one of the safes at the Midnight Bank, and they're not easy. Cracking a Midnight Bank safe is a job for someone who's either a genius, or a nutcase. (Incidentally, don't those two often go hand in hand? Never mind.) However, the accountant in charge of the safe has all of them. So you see, for the police it's simple: she let the thieves in, gave them the passwords and let them take whatever they wanted, then locked up afterwards and went home happily. Only she stopped for a bit to wipe all the security cameras." He sighed, shoving his hands through his hair. "_Her_ story is that she did her shift, went home at ten and then watched Notting Hill from ten fifty until the film ended – she doesn't know when that was, exactly, but around two and a half hours later. She went to sleep and woke up the next morning to find the apartment full of plods."

"In other words, she doesn't have an alibi," said Sesshoumaru. "Tough one."

"Uh-huh. So, you got any pointers?"

Sesshoumaru sat for a while in silence, pondering the problem. "Tell you what," he said finally, taking a pen from the jar on the desk and scribbling a number on a piece of paper, "call this guy and say you're from the YSA. Explain what you're doing and ask him if he knows anyone with a contract for the Midnight Bank – if he doesn't, ask him to nose about a bit, but discreetly. And you better be quick about it, because otherwise he'll have gone to bed already and I speak from experience when I say that that guy is virtually impossible to wake up once he's fallen asleep." He stood up and glanced at his watch (and thus completely missed the funny look Koga gave him at the words "I speak from experience"). "Me, I'll be off to check a couple of things out at this bank." He paused, and then looked kindly at his colleague. "Try not to think too much about this now, OK? And... have you been to see her?"

"No," mumbled Koga. "I tried yesterday, but they wanted official documents and shit before they'd let me visit, and then one of the guys there recognized me..."

"The one you called an inbred pig?"

"No, the one whose nose I used as a handle to smash his face into a beer glass."

"Ah. Well, I think it'd be good if you don't go see her right now, so it was probably for the best." He saw Koga open his mouth and held up his hand, stopping any protest the wolf demon might want to make before he'd had time to form the sentence. "We don't want her to get associated with the YSA on a personal level right now. That way we can investigate into the matter without drawing overmuch attention to ourselves. Alright?"

"Alright," muttered Koga.

"Good." Sesshoumaru smiled at the other man. "We'll sort this out, don't worry. Go ahead and call that number. I'll call on you later to chat. Bye for now."

"Bye," said Koga glumly. He sat and stared as nothing for a while as the other demon left the office, then with a sigh he picked up the phone and started dialling the number he'd been given.

Sesshoumaru looked at his watch again as he unlocked his car. The time was nine thirty; in other words, he had an hour before he was due to meet Jaken. That was not enough time to visit the bank.

On the other hand... Jaken would surely understand if he chose to put Ayame's case as top priority right now. Yes, of course. Certainly... Sesshoumaru grinned, realizing that he was only looking for an excuse to skip the tedious paperwork he and Jaken would bore their way through that morning.

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The fast road to hell is paved with good deeds done only for the sake of getting out of something else.

...Aw, whatever. If he had to go anywhere after he died, Sesshoumaru preferred hell anyway. For one thing, there'd probably be more people he knew there.

Sota was getting ready for bed when the phone rang. He had had a long night with a rather difficult job at a museum, and was looking forward to a nice long snooze. He had no work that night, either, which was very nice since he hadn't had a decent chance to sleep for some time...

He first considered not answering his cell phone, but then decided that he might as well. It could be someone with a contract – god knew he needed a couple of more jobs to make ends meet that month. He'd gotten lousy deals on the last few. He pressed the answering button on his phone and stifled a yawn.

"Sota Higurashi," he said.

"Really?" said the voice on the other end of the line; not exactly a usual opening phrase. "I mean, are you Kagome's brother?"

"Yeah, exactly." Sota grinned. "Who are you?"

"Oh, sorry. Koga, from the YSA. I'm a colleague of your sister's."

"Cool. How's she doing?"

"We got an e-mail yesterday saying they'd try their luck in Venice next. No results in Spain, apparently."

"Sucks," said Sota, feeling that his conversation was a bit monosyllabic. "So what are you calling for, then? Not just an update, I'm guessing."

"No, you're right." There was a pause, then Koga spoke again, hesitantly. "Thing is, I really had no idea who I was calling. I was just given this number and told to ask you... do you know of anyone with a contract for the Midnight Bank? I don't even know what that means, but..."

"Isn't that the really, really high security bank? Friend of crooks everywhere?" Sota frowned. "There's been a break-in? Really?"

"Yeah. And... well, there's this person who's suspected of being an accomplice, and she' my… I don't... I mean, we don't think that she..."

"Got it," said Sota, tactfully saving Koga from having to explain himself further. "The reason whoever it was told you to talk to me is that I'm a Thief. I know what goes on in the underworld, so to speak. I'll ask around and see if can find out who did this. But you know – if it was done by anyone in the union – yeah, there is a trade union for Thieves – word would have gotten round that they were attempting it. I mean, you have to be _really_ good to get into that place. I did my final exam there and was caught at the third alarm."

"What? But..."

"Oh, they didn't call the cops or anything. They volunteered to have us there. (They are just on the border of illegal and legal, you know, and probably closer to the former…) It was just before they changed the security system completely, so we were allowed to play around with the old one. They said it was always good to test it in practice. I think they got some helpful pointers on what to improve." He paused. "Personally, though, I think they just like to rub our face in the fact that we can never get into that place."

Koga laughed. "That fits in well with what I know about it," he said. "So how did it go? The test, I mean."

"Oh, I passed with distinction. Most people didn't get past the first alarm. One guy even lost out before he could make it to the actual building. They have bloody _vicious_ guard dogs."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Koga. "Well, thanks for the help."

"Not that I could tell you much. I promise to give you a call if I get hold of who did it. But unfortunately, I think this'll be a freelance job."

"Yeah, they're not making it easy for us, are they." Koga sighed. "Well, it was nice talking to you. Sleep tight."

"You too," yawned Sota. He hung up, went to bad and was asleep before he'd crawled under the covers.

Sesshoumaru had spent a pretty pointless half hour at the Midnight Bank, going through the complicated alarm systems with a guy who looked like he thought it was actually _interesting_ – a view that was not shared by the one he was guiding. He had also found the time to sniff around N. O. Webber's vault, storing the scents he found there in his nose memory. But there was a limited amount of information to be found in the bank, so he left after avoiding the alarm system guy's invitation to come and look at some other fascinating devices their bank had acquired over the years. He wondered what to do next. If he drove like Inu-yasha he'd probably make it to Jaken only a bit late… but on the other hand, why bother?

Sesshoumaru grinned to himself and went to see Ayame.

The guards were easily taken care of. At the request "Papers?" Sesshoumaru merely produced a letter to the sergeant in charge, and was half a minute later waved on by one _very_ flushed policeman. The assisting sergeant – a very curious young man – managed to read something of the letter over his superior's shoulder, caught the phrase "I have so much dirt on you I could use it to plant a flowerbed" and tactfully refrained from reading the rest. Sesshoumaru strode on down the corridor as if he owned it.

Ayame was sitting in a small interrogation room when he arrived. She looked up at him, wearing a faintly puzzled expression.

"You're not my lawyer," she said.

"Correct," said Sesshoumaru, sitting down at the table, opposite her. "I am something much better than a lawyer. I am someone who's going to help you prove your innocence."

"I thought that was what lawyers did."

"That is what lawyers _say_ they do. However, they are really only after your money and don't really care what happens to you."

"So what do you want?"

"Your undying love. Nothing more."

"This conversation started to go downhill from the 'Correct'."

"Correct," said Sesshoumaru, and smiled. "Alright, to be serious, then: I'm Sesshoumaru, hi. I work with someone I think you know. Koga."

"Oh, you're from the YSA?" Ayame looked delighted. "Ah, so _that's_ where I recognize you from! How are you?"

"Good, thank you for asking."

"And the rest of the guys?"

"Good, mainly." Sesshoumaru paused. "Although there is a certain someone who is damn close to taking up smoking again because he is fretting over another certain someone's possible involvement in a much covered crime."

"Oh, really? Who?"

"Don't you even try that innocent face on me."

"Guess you're right," sighed Ayame. "That only ever really worked on Koga." She paused, and then shrugged. "So, did he send you to me?"

"Not directly. I had a minute to spare and decided to nip by. We are investigating to find evidence of your innocence in the matter, though... if nothing else to calm Koga down." Sesshoumaru smiled. "He is really worried about you, you know."

"Really," said Ayame, looking faintly pleased.

"So!" Sesshoumaru clapped his hands together. "I've been reading through transcripts of the interrogations you've participated in, and I've read your own description of the evening. Notting Hill, huh? What a coincidence – I was watching that too. What did you think of what happened right after the part where he asked her out on a date and suddenly realized it was his sister's birthday?"

"You mean when they went to the birthday party? Oh, it was hilarious. When that guy – "

"No, not the birthday party," Sesshoumaru interrupted. "Before that."

Ayame frowned. "I don't know what you mean."

Sesshoumaru was no longer smiling. "I'm talking about the five minute break because of technical difficulties at the TV station," he said.

There was a long, stifled silence. Ayame opened her mouth once, twice, and finally settled on staring into the table silently. After what must have been several minutes, Sesshoumaru spoke again. "I thought you seemed a little too calm during the interrogations. Almost as if you'd put your story together in advance. It was a good one, I'll grant you – perfect for being the innocent, wrongfully accused civilian, prey to the heartless authorities. You might still be able to pull it off in court. I'm not going to tell. But I want to know the truth, myself." He put his hands on the table that separated them and leaned forwards, staring at her until she looked back at him. "I've been to the Midnight Bank. Your scent is all over the place, not only by your own clients' vaults but by others, too. So I'd like to hear your story. What did you _really_ do on the night of November the twenty-fourth?"

Ayame told him.

"Ah," said Sesshoumaru.

……………………………

_And let's say hello to Ayame, everyone! (Hello Ayame.) First time she enters my writing. _

_Hope you're still enjoying the story (now that the plot thickens. Ooh, I love that phrase). If so, or if not, comments are always appreciated! _

_On a side note, now the Christmas rush has started. Yay! For me it's especially noticeable since the days at the café become even more stressed – everybody's out Christmas shopping, and many end (or begin) their day with a coffee. So they come to us, and we work our asses off! Which on the one hand means hard days, but on the other means lots of money for Christmas presents. So I guess it evens out. _

_Good luck with your Christmas shopping! Until the next chapter... :)_


	5. In a boat on Deep Water

In (a boat on) Deep Water

…a.k.a. Arriving in Venice

Shippou dialled a number on his phone, praying fervently that Royakan wouldn't be the first to pick up. Well, if he did, Shippou would have an excuse. He would say that he wanted to get hold of an old robbery rapport and ask if Royakan knew where it could be found. But still, he'd like to avoid it...

"Hello?" said a female voice, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Kit?" he said. "Hi. It's me."

………………………

Inu-yasha dropped the bag to the ground heavily.

"Ah, careful!" Kagome turned abruptly, looking shocked. "There's a computer in there, you know!"

Inu-yasha made an exasperated gesture. "Don't tell me you stole Sesshoumaru's laptop _again_?" Kagome's guilty expression was answer enough, so he picked up the bag – carefully this time – and started walking again. "How far away is this motel anyway? Bag weighs a ton and my feet are sore."

"A big strong guy like you, having trouble with a bag?" Kagome grinned and then gave him a fond peck on the cheek. "Almost there now. I'll treat you to a coffee when we get there."

For Kagome, "almost there" meant fifteen minutes walk, despite a shortcut through someone's garden. When they finally got to the motel Inu-yasha was tired and hungry, and his T-shirt was torn from where it had caught on the fence they'd had to climb when Kagome's clever shortcut turned out to be a dead end.

"That had better be an _expensive_ coffee," he muttered, massaging his aching shoulders. Kagome grinned apologetically.

"Sorry. Oy, can we get some service here?" she shouted, leaning across the unmanned reception desk and banging on it with her hand. A minute passed, then another. Finally a young man arrived and looked at them without enthusiasm.

"Room for two, is it?" he asked.

"An amazing deduction," answered Kagome. She smiled. It was a smile that would have told anyone with an intelligence quote of a duck or higher that he should not mess with this chick.

Unfortunately, the young man had – apparently – the intelligence quote of a duck that had been hit repeatedly on the head. "I'll see what I can do," he drawled. "It might take a while, but. Sit down and chill and I'll check it out soon." He turned lazily and was about to make his way back out to the adjoining room when a hand suddenly grabbed the hood of his sweater, yanking him back against the counter. Inu-yasha sat back to enjoy the show.

"Do you know what happens to people who obstruct police business?" asked Kagome pleasantly. The sweet impression was somewhat ruined by the tight grip on the guy's collar, a grip that would have honoured any middle school bully. The guy shook his head mutely. "Depending on the severity of the crime, you can be fined up to… argh, I never learned how much it is in euro – Inu-yasha, a clue? Alright, never mind. It's a lot anyway. And if the investigation you interrupt is very serious, you can even go to jail." Kagome twirled the guy around, making him face her, and flipped open a badge. "Now, do you know what happens to people who obstruct CIA business? No? I'm not surprised, because many of them have trouble speaking afterwards. If we're in a good mood though, we only break their fingers." She tightened her grip on his collar, lowering her voice to a menacing growl. "Within the next thirty seconds, I want you to find us a room, preferably with a nice view. You will then carry our luggage to that room. And if I see so much a rumpled shirt in any of our bags, you will be made to eat it. Now _move_!"

"Y-yes!" stammered the poor boy. He backed away slowly, and then turned and ran out into the adjoining room as fast as his legs could carry him.

Inu-yasha applauded silently. "You're tired from the walk, too, I take it?" he asked.

"Why?"

"He still has his head."

Kagome laughed, looking a bit embarrassed. "You think I went at him too hard?" she asked anxiously.

"I think it'll be a long time before he acts sloppy in front of a customer again," answered Inu-yasha simply. "What was that about the CIA, by the way?"

"Oh, I kept the badge," said Kagome, flipping it open for inspection. "Thought it could be fun to have sometimes. Technically I was supposed to hand it in when I left, but Kaede is a sentimental old bag and let me hang on to it. She's still hoping I'll come back some day."

The boy came running back, carrying a booking folder in his arms. "WE'VE-GOT-A-ROOM-FACING-THE-CANAL-ON-THE-SECOND-FLOOR!" he said in one breath, putting the folder on the counter and bowing repeatedly. Kagome narrowed her eyes.

"That was thirty-six seconds," she said. "Inu-yasha, what do you think?"

"I like his T-shirt," yawned Inu-yasha, stretching his shoulders. "Good fashion sense. Let him live."

"Lucky you," said Kagome dangerously. The guy gulped.

"U-um," he mumbled, "if you'd just sign in here with your name and how long you'll be staying and stuff, I'll take your bags up…"

"Be careful with that one." Inu-yasha pointed. "It's damn heavy and you wouldn't want to drop it, seeing as our computer is in there and she likes our computer. You speak good English, by the way."

"Thank you," whispered the boy, who had gone ashen at the mention of the – very breakable – computer. "I'm American."

"Go figure," said Inu-yasha.

"Says here I should write duration of the stay." Kagome turned towards him as the boy, carrying the computer bag as if it was made of glass, started on the stairs. "What should I put there?"

"Indefinite."

"Sounds good. Ooh, the little twerp… _"I'll see what I can do," _he says, when the motel is near empty. The only ones apart from us are two other couples, from Brazil and Japan; five Swedish guys who I'd guess are backpackers and a Norwegian dude called Red Ipsen. Ipsen, wasn't that the guy who wrote A Doll House?"

"You're thinking about Ibsen," said Inu-yasha. "And he lived in the beginning of the twentieth century."

"Close enough."

"So what are we called?"

"Vaughan and Carla Young. From Glasgow."

"Oh come on, you know I can't do Scottish."

"You were adopted by American parents and only last year returned to your home country. You were on a trip to Scotland when I, who played with you as a child – or bairn, as we say in Scotland – recognized you and told you who you really are. Your American parents had tried to make you believe your name was Vincent and that you were their real son and had no connection to Scotland whatsoever, but I brought you out of that life of lies."

"Really? I have a pretty cool life. Do I have a motorbike?"

"No. You drive a Ferrari."

"Aw, give me a break. This life sucks."

"Maybe we'll hire a motorboat while we're here. Now come on, let's get that coffee."

………………………

Sesshoumaru arrived at the YSA office with the intention of dropping off a report – written by _himself_ for once, in other words almost a collector's item – and found the rest of the agency gathered around the desk in a tight knot. All seemed to be watching something that was lying on the desktop. Sesshoumaru was puzzled.

"What's going on?" he asked. Hiten raised his head, grinned and gave him a wave.

"An e-mail arrived from Kagome and Inu-yasha," he said in reply to the question. "And a postcard from about a week ago, when they were still in Spain. The e-mail says they just arrived in Venice."

"What, today? I thought they decided five days ago or something that they would move on from Madrid. What's taken them so long?"

"Trouble with finding train tickets, trouble with customs and lastly trouble with a snow storm."

"Oh. That'd explain it." Sesshoumaru shrugged. "Well, hand me the postcard, you're all finished with that, right?"

"Yeah." Hiten shoved at his brother to get hold of the card, handed it to Sesshoumaru and went back to reading the e-mail. It was quite long, and the first page consisted almost entirely of swear words.

Sesshoumaru smiled as he looked at the postcard. The photo was from a Spanish beach on a sunny day, filled with sunbathing people. Inu-yasha and Kagome had edited the picture slightly, drawing umbrellas in the hands of the bathers and filling the sky with rain. Sesshoumaru flipped the postcard over and read their message:

_Go to Spain:_

_Get_

_Wet._

"Poor darlings," said Sesshoumaru, not without sarcasm. "Hey, Hiten, Manten, how did the smuggle job go?"

"Huh? Oh, good," Hiten replied, looking up from the e-mail again. "Got them, no problem. Then we handed them over to customs to let those guys deal with all the legal stuff because that is _so boring_." He paused and smiled, nostalgically. "The best part of it was probably when one of the drivers realized we'd found the stuff and tried to make a run for it. Made for the fence by the road – which we had of course taken the precaution of electrifying. My god, I've never seen a person jump like that before."

Manten laughed in remembrance as he heard his brother tell the story, raising his head as well. "Lot of nice little trinkets there," he said, indicating the smuggle van. "I wanted to pilfer some but Hiten wouldn't let me."

"Well, that would be rather missing the point of the excursion, wouldn't it?" said Hiten, rolling his eyes. "I swear, I can't imagine anyone who'd be worse for pursuing justice than you."

"Is that what we're doing?"

Sesshoumaru decided to let the brothers fight it out among themselves and sat down to wait until the rest of the YSA members had finished with the e-mail so they all could get down to some work. This took some time. Since Spiderman was a very slow reader, and since the rest of the agents were all more or less entangled in his multiple arms they had no choice but to wait until he was done. By the time they had gotten themselves in some kind of order and stopped resembling something that wouldn't be completely out of place in a Hindu painting, Sesshoumaru had had time to walk down to the nearest café, buy himself a cup of take away coffee, chat for a while with the pretty waitress and walk back leisurely.

"So..." he said, as he once more entered the office and watched Shippou fight his way out of the knot, "You got any special plans for today, Ship? Because otherwise I thought you might want to help me with some stuff."

"Sure," panted Shippou, and managed at last to free his right foot. "With what?"

"Oh, stuff."

"Oh? Thanks for elaborating," said Shippou tartly. "Hey, how did you do with the environmental hazard guy? Trial was yesterday, right?"

"Guilty on all charges."

"Well done."

"Thank you. Now come on, let's get out of here. We're doing field work."

"OK. But hey – "

"Hey!" Koga called out, interrupting whatever Shippou had been about to say. Sesshoumaru winced. He'd been hoping to avoid Koga.

"Hey," Koga said again as he made his way to them. "Sessh, how's it going with the break-in? Have you come up with something yet? Did you go see her? Did she say anything?"

"Yeah, and she's innocent, no problem," said Sesshoumaru brightly. "Me and Shippou are just off to prove it."

"Oh, something that simple?" mumbled Shippou. Not that anyone listened.

"Of course she is innocent," snarled Koga. "We knew that from the start! Ayame isn't the kind of girl who'd lie and steal and do criminal stuff!"

"Of course not," said Sesshoumaru carefully. "Well, we can't stay and chat, I'm afraid. We have to be off and – oh, now what."

Royakan had waved to him, stopping him from leaving. He crawled under one of Spiderman's arms and joined them by the door. Shippou looked suddenly nervous, which he had all cause to be because the first thing Royakan said was, "Ship, did you call me yesterday?"

"Me?" said Shippou, the picture of innocence.

"Yeah, I saw your number on the phone records."

"Oh... yeah, you're right." Shippou nodded. "I was going to ask you if you had the report on that robbery at an art exhibition last month. But you weren't there."

"Nah, me and the missus went out for dinner last night. But you know the strange thing I noticed? Your phone call lasted for half an hour and I thought 'Hey, that's weird. Who could Shippou want to talk to in my house except for me?'"

"Yeah..." said Shippou slowly. Sesshoumaru and Koga could practically see the wheels turning to come up with a plausible explanation. "Uh... thing was, I got hold of your eldest, what's-her-name... Kit, and she insisted on running around the entire house trying to find you. And I think she had to break up a fight between two siblings on the way back to the phone, too. She took her time looking for you, anyway."

"Oh, that would explain it." Royakan nodded.

(Koga would never stop marveling over Shippou's seemingly endless imagination.)

Sesshoumaru sighed irritably, throwing his hands out. "Anyone else with any interruptions," he said, "or are we free to go? Guess so. Let's get out of here, Ship." Shippou didn't have to be told twice, since Royakan was suddenly frowning about something again – possibly phone records. Sesshoumaru said goodbye to the others and was just about to follow his young colleague when...

"Yo, Sessh!" called the voice of Ginta, from behind Manten's bulk. Sesshoumaru instantly went completely deaf, and Koga and Royakan would later say they hadn't seen him move so fast since the day Inu-yasha went at his wardrobe with a pair of scissors.

………………………

"I swear some days you ought not to get out of bed," sighed Sesshoumaru, unlocking his car and dropping his bag in the back.

"Isn't that Inu-yasha language for good morning?" asked Shippou. "Can I drive?"

"No. You're seventeen and haven't got your license. That would be breaking the law which of course we never do."

"Because then I couldn't be used as a concerned relative anymore."

"Exactly."

"So what do you want me for now, really?" asked Shippou, looking enviously at the older demon as he started the engine. "And if you say 'stuff' again I swear I'll use all my spare time to dig up something about you on the Net and then sell it."

"Actually, the real reason I want you for this case is because I want a sane person to speak to," sighed Sesshoumaru. He reached into the back seat to get a yellow file from his bag, which he handed to Shippou before pulling out from the sidewalk. "Here's the deal," he said, "we're out to prove Ayame's innocent, because otherwise Koga will fret so much he'll make me kill him which would be a shame because he still owes me money. I want you to research this thoroughly."

"Yeah, I read through the case a bit more carefully after Ginta and Hakkaku went at me about it, so I'm all updated now," said Shippou. "And really, we ought to be able to get her off easily. I mean there are lots of things that just don't fit – how would she be able to, I quote the police's theory, "wipe the security cameras after the thieves were done"? The security cameras at the Midnight Bank are high technology stuff, it's not something just anyone can play around with! You'd have to be real good at your stuff to be able to manipulate those, there's no way she – "

"She often helps out in the camera department. The guy in charge told me she's got a fantastic aptitude for it."

"But..."

"I want you," Sesshoumaru interrupted, "to check all of Ayame's credentials, professions before her work at the Midnight Club, graduation records, whatever you can find. Any education she's ever finished, I want it on paper and I want to know how she did, what her grades were and what her teachers thought. And I want to know what credentials she presented when she started working at the bank." He paused, to switch lanes, and then went on, "I also want you to look into something else for me. There should be an Appendix H in that file; take it out."

Shippou did so. "It's a list of artworks, among other things."

"Good, that's the one. I want you to find out if any of the items on the list have been put out on the market lately. It won't be the open market – search the black one, illegal trade. Check up on known art collectors and see if any of them have paid out large amounts of money lately. If so, trace the target."

"Sure," Shippou nodded, scribbling a few notes in the margin of the list. "But what does this have to do with the Ayame case?"

"Oh, nothing." Sesshoumaru waved it away. "I just slipped the paper in there because I had no other folder close to hand. It's for something else altogether."

"Right. So where are we going now?"

"To the Midnight Bank. I'm going to introduce you to a kindred spirit."

………………………

Meanwhile, somewhere in Venice...

"I said I wanted an expensive coffee!"

"This is the most expensive café I could find in the vicinity, Inu-yasha."

"It's cheap!"

"It's still extremely good. And what on earth are you being so difficult for? Usually, you complain when something is too expensive. You don't start whining because it's cheap!"

"You're missing the point. I wanted to see your wallet suffer."

"Is this some attempt to get back at me for that extremely expensive coffee you bought me once? Are you _still_ hung up about that?"

"Feh. That has nothing to do with it."

"My god. How old are you?"

……

"What?"

"...I don't want to tell you. It's embarrassing."

"Why?"

"Demon, remember?"

"Come on, don't be like that. Just whisper it, OK?"

"Alright, alright. Come here."

……

"…_how_ old?"

"We do live longer, you know."

"I mean, really. _That_ old?"

"Could you stop sniggering like that?"

"Heh heh. I'm dating a fossil."

"I just _knew_ you'd take it like this."

………………………

_Hi there! Is anybody still reading this? If so, I'm very sorry for my very long breaks between updates. (Feels as if I say this a lot.)_

_Two days to Christmas! (We celebrate on Christmas Eve in Sweden.) Can't wait. Christmas presents, yay:)_


	6. Central Intelligence Agency Outwitted

The **C**entral **I**ntelligence **A**gency Outwitted

A hand moved slowly towards its target.

"God, I'm bored," yawned Koga.

The hand paused, then went on its way, yet more slowly and sneakily.

"No new cases. Nothing interesting."

The hand crept along a shelf. It was so close...

"The movie on TV last night right out _sucked_."

The hand reached its destination. It reached out with its index finger to push the lid off a box.

"And I can't even help out with the Midnight Bank investigation because Spiderman don't you dare touch that."

The hand withdrew instantly and guiltily.

"It's Hiten's private stash and he wouldn't be happy if you took it. Besides, it's not good for you, you know that. Makes your heart race."

Although it was always difficult to tell where Spiderman's shoulders were, Koga had the impression that he shrugged.

"Really, we've been through this so many times before. Keep off that stuff, alright?"

Spiderman didn't speak much. He was an expert in silences, however. Right now he had worked up a nice and sulky one.

"Come on, give it up. Otherwise I'll tell Hiten to move it." Koga frowned at his colleague, then sighed and rested his head in his hands. "Man, this week has been such a dump. And the Naraku investigation has come to a complete standstill. Kagome and Inu-yasha haven't even caught a hint of his whereabouts and we aren't getting anywhere over here, either. And it feels as if we should be able to do _something_, at least... maybe what we need is a new perspective on things. Or something."

Spiderman shrugged. Or nodded, possibly.

"Well, I'm going to give the case another shot. Hand me the phone. CAREFULLY!" Koga ducked the hand that came flying towards him, grabbing the phone as the hand went back again the other way. "Thank you. Are you still going to those classes by the way, those for Controlled Muscle Movement? No? Might be a good idea to start again. Just a suggestion." He dialled a familiar number and waited for the call to go through.

"Hey, Sesshoumaru. It's Koga. Could you pick something up for me when you come back here?"

"Hi, Nobby. Are you there yet? Good. Yeah, I'm on my way. Well yeah, but I got held up. Oh, come on. Did we ever go there to check the coffee machines, do you remember? No? Could you take a look at it now? ...oh. Yeah, I've got my reporter's card. I probably have yours, too, that's why... well, _sorry_. Yes, I'm coming, I said that. They'll have to let us in once I show them. Take some pictures while you're waiting or something. What? ...oh. What do you know, you're right. Here it is. Hey! How can I help if you decide to leave your camera and card and whatnot in my car? How is that any of my fault? Why... Oh yeah. OK, you're right. It _is_ my fault. Sorry sorry. Oh, I have to go. Yeah, I'm on Pullman Street, I'll be there soon. Bye bye."

The traffic lights in front of them changed to yellow just as Sesshoumaru finished his conversation with Koga. Since he, unlike his brother, deeply respected the yellow light, he braked gently and stopped in time. Another car pulled up beside him; a blue convertible, driven by a woman somewhere in her twenties. They nodded to each other, one convertible owner acknowledging another.

"Nice car," said the woman.

"You too," Sesshoumaru answered. "Shame about the colour."

"You mean that it doesn't match my nail polish, like yours?"

"Hah, hah." Sesshoumaru smiled, making her grin. Then the light turned to green and he pulled off, waving goodbye to the woman as he accelerated past her. Shippou looked at him tiredly.

"Do you have to flirt with everything female?" he asked.

"That is slander."

"Well, you do."

"That was not flirting. It was a simple exchange of pleasantries between two owners of very nice-looking cars."

"I can accept that the actual words can be thought of as simple pleasantries or whatever you want to call it. But in your mouth it somehow automatically becomes flirting."

"It's a gift."

"Yes. I believe the word for this gift is 'lechery'."

"You have it wrong. Miroku is lecherous. I am merely charismatic."

"…I've always said your modesty is your best trait."

"Why, thank you!"

"It says something about the rest of your traits."

They drove on in silence for a while, Shippou turning back to the manual for security cameras he had been given by the guy at the Midnight Bank and Sesshoumaru concentrating on the navigation. They were going to the CIA's temporary base in town, to pick up some information about Naraku. Koga seemed to have made an early New Year's resolution to catch him, judging by his sudden enthusiasm for everything Narakuish. Well, he wasn't alone in that, at least – there was nothing the YSA members wanted more than to see Naraku as defendant in a court trial.

Preferably with a _really _sucky lawyer.

"Hey, Sessh…" said Shippou suddenly, leaning forward and peering into the side mirror.

"Hm?"

"Did you offer her lunch in some underhanded way I didn't notice?"

"No, but I see what you mean." Sesshoumaru smiled and looked in the back mirror at the blue convertible. "She's stayed hard on our tail since that red light. I'll ask her what she's doing."

"Maybe you've got yourself a stalker?"

"The horror. One's more than enough, thanks."

"What, you mean you already _have _one? How do you come into contact with these people?"

"That would be the charisma again – a double-edged sword."

As they pulled up at the next red light, the woman in the blue convertible halted once again beside them. Sesshoumaru leaned out of the car, smiling at her. "Are you shadowing me?" he asked. "I can think of worse things than being followed by you, but it's making my passenger nervous."

"Bastard," hissed Shippou under his breath.

The woman laughed. "I wasn't following you, no," she answered, leaning her head to one side. "I'm on my way to work. Maybe we're simply headed for the same place?"

"Not likely," Sesshoumaru replied, because it wasn't. He knew all the CIA members at least by sight, and he didn't recognize this woman at all.

"But possible? We'll just have to wait and see then, right?" she grinned. "Oh, green light. I'll lead this time." She pulled away with a wave, and Sesshoumaru steered his car into the lane behind her. She was following their route exactly, and he couldn't help but wonder over the coincidence. When she pulled up right in front of the CIA building, he was nothing short of astonished. He parked his car behind her and locked it absentmindedly, then stepped up to her as she collected her things from the backseat of her own car. (Shippou, who hadn't got out in time, found he couldn't open the door and was forced to clamber over the side, all the while swearing loudly.)

"So, we did have the same destination after all," smiled the woman. "Are you reporters?"

"No," answered Sesshoumaru, shaking his head. He almost added "Scum of the earth", but caught sight of the card hanging around her neck at the last minute and decided that it would not be diplomatic. "I see you are, however. Why are you here?"

"The robbery," said the woman, as if this was something everyone should know about. When he looked uncomprehending she continued, "The robbery here, last night. You know?" She saw his bewilderment and smiled. "You don't know."

Sesshoumaru shook his head, both to imply that he did indeed not know and to clear his head. Why hadn't they found out about this? "I'm sorry," he said, "but I have to go. Shippou!"

"On my way," said Shippou wearily, and followed him into the building.

"What's up?" he asked, hurrying up to Sesshoumaru's side. "Who was she?"

"A reporter. Apparently there's been a break-in."

"Oh shit. Anything important?"

"Well, I don't know, do I? These bloody stuck up CIA guys never seem to think we're important enough to be told about what happens. I mean, the only way we can even get told if there are any new developments in the Naraku investigation is to go here and ask them…"

"I was here last week to drop off something of Kagome's and they wouldn't tell me even that because I was underage."

"Morons," said Sesshoumaru heavily and swept past the secretary without waiting to explain who and what he was. As usual it was left to Shippou to handle those things, and he thought not for the first time that the label of maturity, sense of duty and being of legal age was something he had earned more than any other guy in the YSA.

When he caught up with his colleague again, he was yelling at a guy Shippou recognized as their CIA contact. "What do you mean, _all records gone_!"

"Well you see, that's CIA code for _the records are not here_," said the guy testily.

"They are gone? All of them? Every single little piece of information about Naraku that we had?"

"I think I used those exact words when I explained this to you, yes."

"Well, how could they get hold of it? Did you keep all the information together at the same place or what? Didn't you have any backup?"

"Oh no, we didn't bother with that," said the guy. "And we kept all the Naraku information in one big cabinet smack in the middle of my office, and we wrote a big sign saying "Incriminating evidence against Naraku a.k.a. Onigumo, please, help yourselves!" and stuck it above."

Sesshoumaru paused. "I don't appreciate your sarcasm."

"I don't appreciate you."

"Please," Shippou intervened before it got ugly, "could you show us around, give us the gist of what went on here last night? If you know, of course. This is very important to our investigation. Do you have any idea of what happened?"

"We have it on tape," the guy answered, suddenly looking very tired. "It's a group of four, and a demon – we think one with powers of electricity, lightning maybe, that would have been able to throw the alarms and other electronic equipment."

"You don't have a failsafe for electrical interference? No MB-EL or Chip demons?" asked Shippou. Sesshoumaru looked at him in complete incomprehension, but the CIA guy seemed to understand.

"We do," he said, "but there was a lot of disturbance last night, electrical _and_ magical. They did a pretty neat job. We did manage to save some of the camera recording though, and we have been able to get a pretty clear picture of at least one of the intruders. The other three are well covered up, but she hasn't been as cautious and we have a few really good shots of her face."

"She?"

"Yeah, it's a young woman – pretty. Probably a sorceress or demon. We've got people on it now, trying to identify her through the crime records."

"So how did they manage to get hold of all the Naraku information?"

"To be honest," said the guy, "we haven't got a clue. They have wiped every single computer clean of only that specific information, they've got hold of all the files we had on him and they've even got into the backup room and taken all the duplicate files and CD's. They must have a mole somewhere in the CIA, because there is no way they could have found everything otherwise. We're all currently under investigation so I'm coming out on a limb here, just talking to you."

"We understand that. Thank you," said Shippou, eager to make up for any politeness Sesshoumaru had failed to deliver. The guy shrugged.

"Well, it's as much your investigation as mine, so you have the right to it. Anyway, they haven't disturbed anything other than that they were looking for, so no one noticed the break-in until I arrived – which was a bit of a fluke, actually. I was supposed to go on leave today, so if I hadn't come back to pick up something I wanted to work on during my holidays, this wouldn't have been discovered until next week."

"Or until we came knocking."

"Yeah. Well, do you want to have a look around? I'll take you to my office, that's where we had the bulk of the information. Let me just get a cup of coffee first... there's a machine in the entrance..."

"It's broken," said Shippou.

"What?"

"It's broken," Shippou repeated. "I heard a woman Sesshoumaru was flirting with earlier telling her friend about it. She sounded positively ecstatic."

"Why?" asked Sesshoumaru, looking puzzled. Shippou shrugged.

"Don't know. Maybe she doesn't like coffee?"

"That's strange," said the CIA guy, frowning in annoyance. "It wasn't broken yesterday. Oh well, it's this way to my office..."

Well there, he and Shippou pottered around doing nothing while Sesshoumaru did his famous seeker dog imitation, walking around the room and breathing deep through his nose. Once or twice his eyes lit up with interest, but he didn't explain why. When he considered himself finished he asked to be taken to the backup room, still not telling them what he had noticed. While a younger agent took him down to the cellars, Shippou and the CIA guy worked with combined forces to figure out what was wrong with the coffee machine. (After having had her in the agency for the last couple of months, almost all of the YSA members had more or less picked up Kagome's addiction.)

"Do you hear what those two are talking about?" asked the reporter, eyes shining as she turned towards her camera man from watching Shippou's and the other man's efforts at the machine. Nobby cocked his head and listened.

"Coffee," he said. The reporter frowned.

"Wha... oh yes, they are. But did you hear what they were talking about earlier?" When Nobby shook his head she went on, "They were discussing the painting outside that guy's office. Now, his was the one that was broken into. And guess what painting they were discussing? One by Edward Munck, that crazy painter."

"What has..." Nobby stopped short. "The Scream."

"Exactly! That's what she said: _there is a… scream… they approach their target…_ This is great! I was going to work the unknown, shocked witness angle – you know, throw in something juicy about the terrified girl who watched through a window – "

"Or boy," said Nobby, a man who believed deeply in gender equity. The reporter waved it away.

"Girl, boy, bending, whatever. Point is, I wanted to work the scream into the story somehow – that sort of thing always sells. But this is even better! She was talking about the _painting_ The Scream! And that's perfect proof of her authenticity – there's no way she could have known about it being outside that office!"

"Do you believe her, then?" asked Nobby, surprised at the conviction in her voice.

"What?" The reporter stopped short and then snorted with derision. "No, not a chance. She's got a mole in here probably, she like everyone else. But we don't have to include that." Suddenly she smiled again, making victory signs with both hands. "Nobby, guess what – we've got ourselves a story!"

"Sesshoumaru," said Shippou as his colleague returned from the cellars looking thoughtful yet faintly triumphant, "I thought you said, when I asked you earlier, that you _didn't _offer her lunch?"

"What?" said Sesshoumaru, coming out of his reverie and feeling as if he had missed half of the conversation.

"She says you did," Shippou replied, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder towards the reporter and rolling his eyes at his colleague. Sesshoumaru looked past him at the reporter and reached a decision.

"And so I did," he said, and walked quickly past his stunned colleague to join the reporter and her camera man. By the time Shippou had realized what had happened and hurried after him, he and the reporter had already made plans to check out a pasta place a bit further into town (one of Kagome's favourites).

"What the hell are you doing?" asked Shippou, drawing the older demon to one side. Sesshoumaru smiled at him.

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," he said, took the arm of the reporter and swept out of the building.

Nobby and Shippou looked at each other. ¨

"Did you understand any of that?"

"Not a thing."

"Me neither. You wouldn't by any chance have a car, would you?"

"I'm seventeen."

"Shame. She's got my keys."

"You like sushi?"

"You know a place?"

"If you don't mind walking."

"Trust me, with that girl for a partner, I walk _a lot_."

……………………………

_Over a month since the last chapter. I realize myself that this is somewhat pathetic. _

_Oh well, at least I'm back now! I've had a great Christmas and New Year's – hope you did, too. _

_Gotta run!_


	7. Dead Ends and Fresh Starts

Dead Ends and Fresh Starts

"So who are we seeing again?"

"You know," grinned Kagome, "this reminds me a lot of when we first started investigating the Shikon Deal. It was always like this then. We'd go and see people, and talk to them, and try to glean some little piece of information..."

"Yeah, only back then it was my friends we were seeing, not Kanna's, and although I thought I had complete control over the investigation I was sadly mistaken."

"Come on, are you still hung up about that?"

"No, I'm just saying you're a double-crossing sneaky bitch. So who are we seeing again?"

"A guy called..." Kagome squinted at her notebook, "Marco Brunetti. He lives right by this station... uh..." She consulted the notebook again. "Well, I can't pronounce it so never mind. It's the next station anyway, so get ready."

"I hate Venice. Why are there no streets? And did I mention I'm allergic to water?" asked Inu-yasha, who had been almost constantly queasy since they arrived. His experience of boats so far had been limited, bordering on nonexistent, and Kagome's offer to hire a motorboat for a bit of exploration should they decide to take a day off the investigation had been forcefully rejected.

"Twice," said Kagome. "Want me to hold your hand while you walk off the scary boat onto nice, safe ground?"

"Why didn't I ever get offers like that last time I went on a boat and was single?"

"Because you were ten years old and still afraid of girly germs."

The house they were visiting was old, large and very pretty. Kagome whistled her appreciation and then started looking through the names listed by the front door. "Fourth floor," she said. "Must have a nice view." She pressed the button beside Brunetti's name hard, waited for a while and then rang again. After the second time the phone was picked up by a guy who sounded as if he was just out of bed.

"Mm?"

"Hello," said Kagome, cheerfully. "We are from an agency in America called the Youkai Secret Agency. We were wondering if you would spare us – "

"Bugger off," said the guy and put the phone down.

Kagome gritted her teeth, and rang again.

"Just go away," said the voice when the phone was answered the second time. "I don't – "

"As I was saying," Kagome cut off (this time not so cheerfully), "we're from the YSA, a more specialized, more secret and although I'm not supposed to say this more _brutal_ branch of the CIA. Have you ever heard of the CIA, sir?"

"Come up," said the voice and the lock on the door buzzed. Kagome smiled.

"It's all down to having the right rhetoric," she said.

The guy was waiting for them as they arrived on the fourth floor, wearing an old soccer T-shirt over worn jeans. His initially hostile expression changed as he saw them into a sudden, delighted smile, and he clapped his hands together.

"_Dio_," he exclaimed, "the CIA must surely these days stand for Cute and Irresistibly Attractive! Come in, come in. I will put on coffee."

"I like him already," whispered Kagome to Inu-yasha and grinned.

They were ushered into a living room with a (indeed nice) view of the canal and presented with one cup of coffee each (Kagome pounced on hers as if she hadn't had three cups already that morning). Marco, who had admonished them to call him by his first name, sat down in front of them with his own breakfast.

"I hope you don't mind?" he asked. "I only just got up, you must excuse my rude behaviour earlier."

"No problem," smiled Kagome. "Would you be willing to answer a few questions for us while you eat?"

"When a beauty like you are asking the answer can be no other than yes," grinned Marco. "Has anyone ever told you that you have very pretty eyes?"

"I believe my boyfriend told me as late as yesterday."

"And where is your boyfriend? Is he close?" He quirked his eyebrows.

"Quite close, yes," said Inu-yasha warningly, and had the pleasure of seeing Marco choke on his croissant. "You aren't by any chance related to an American guy called Miroku, are you?"

Marco's eyes lit up. "My second cousin Miroku!" he exclaimed. "Do you know him? How is he? How did you know that I know him?"

"Let's call it an educated guess."

"He's fine," Kagome supplied. "His club's going great. He got his girlfriend to help out and it's being going good ever since."

"His girlfriend?" asked Marco, frowning in confusion. "As in just _one_ girlfriend?"

"Believe me, we're just as surprised."

"Well, this certainly is news." Marco shook his head, smiling. "To think you know Miroku! But you are not here to talk about him. What can I help you with?"

"Do you know someone called Naraku, possibly?" asked Kagome, watching his face carefully for a reaction. The one she got was a puzzled one.

"Naraku..." Marco chewed his lip thoughtfully. "Can't say I recognize his name, no."

"But you know Kanna?"

"Kanna!" Once again, Marco lit up as the name was mentioned. "Don't tell me you know her, too? You do! What a coincidence!"

"Coincidence. Yeah," said Inu-yasha carefully. "We talked to Kanna just before we left America," (this was not strictly true) "and she told us that this guy, Naraku, would be seeking a hiding place here in Venice, possibly through old friends of hers. So we're looking for him."

"Why?" asked Marco innocently.

"We don't like him."

"Fair enough." Marco pulled his brows together in thought. "Now that you mention it... there was a guy here maybe two weeks ago, didn't give his name but said he knew Kanna. He asked for a place to stay but I said he couldn't live with me."

"Why not?"

"Well..." Marco looked quickly from Inu-yasha to Kagome and then put on a pious expression. "Because, to tell the truth, he looked very criminal and I do not have anything to with that kind of stuff anymore."

Inu-yasha stared at him. "Yeah, and my name is Ronald Reagan."

"Is it?"

"No. Come on, we're not stupid. What was the _real_ reason you wouldn't have him?"

Marco grinned. "Alright. I was having a party that weekend and he looked boring. Didn't want to have him around, ruining the mood. Happy?"

"With 'boring', I assume you mean 'prepared to go to the police at the first sign of illegal substances, not that I'd _ever_ allow it at one of my parties'?" said Inu-yasha, and had two replies in the forms of Marco grinning broadly and Kagome kicking his ankle.

"Happy," said latter, knowing that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar and hints about selling the person you're interrogating out to the authorities never work all that well for extracting information. "So what did you suggest him to do?"

"Go and see a couple of friends of mine, all more or less shallow acquaintances of Kanna's. I'll give you the names..." Kagome handed him her notebook and he wrote four names down, complete with addresses. "And I also suggested to him that if he wanted to lie low, he'd do well to get out of Venice. Here everyone knows everyone, and anything that happens becomes known within hours or at the very most a couple of days. If he stayed with anyone here, the ones who were looking for him wouldn't have a hard time finding him."

"What did he say?"

"That he wasn't lying low, he was on a pleasure trip and he didn't have any reason to hide anyway." Marco glanced at Inu-yasha and grinned. "To which I responded that if that were true, my name was Silvio Berlusconi."

"Is it?" asked Inu-yasha.

"No."

"But you don't know whether he did shack up with any of the guys you recommended?" asked Kagome.

"He didn't," Marco replied. "I would have heard. He's not staying with anyone in my circle. So if you want my opinion, I think he's left Venice."

"Damn," said Kagome, frowning. "Well, what date did you meet him here? It would be good to know when he was here, at least, even if he isn't any longer."

"Sure, no problem. It was on the... wait..." He thought hard. "The twenty-sixth of November. Exactly two weeks ago."

"And you don't think he's here anymore?"

Marco shrugged noncommittally. "I think I would have heard."

Feeling disappointed and downtrodden, they took their farewells and left the apartment. "So what do we do now?" asked Inu-yasha, as the door closed behind them. Kagome shrugged, starting to walk down the stairs.

"We still visit all the other names we have. They might have hidden him well enough to escape the grapevine, or they might know something of where he went."

"We'll have to hope he doesn't talk, too," said Inu-yasha, inclining his head in the general direction of Marco's apartment. "It wouldn't be good if he let slip something about our visit and it made its way to Naraku's ears."

"Oh yeah, you're right," said Kagome, ran up the stairs and rang Marco's doorbell again. When he opened the door she gave him her very brightest and cutest smile.

"Forgot to ask," she said, "but would it be too much to ask you to keep quiet about this? It's a bit embarrassing, really... we're not after Naraku as CIA agents, but for personal reasons, and if it comes out that we're abusing our authority like this..." She allowed herself a nervous little laugh. Marco beamed at her.

"Anything for you, _bella_," he said, and added in a whisper that nevertheless carried to Inu-yasha's sensitive ears, "If ever you decide he is not the one after all, I'm usually free on Saturdays." He tipped her a wink, waved at the glowering Inu-yasha and closed the door.

Sesshoumaru arrived at the YSA office four days later to find it empty.

"Hello?" he called. "Anyone here?" There was a long pause, and then Shippou stuck his head through the doorway to the adjoining room and smiled at him.

"Morning!" he said cheerfully, and disappeared back in. "Sorry, I'm just fixing something here... got it." There was another brief pause and then he appeared in the door, with his whole body this time. "You're here early. What's happened to you? This has to be the third time in a week you actually get up at a normal time."

"Everyone keeps saying this to me. You mean that usually I'm not normal? You don't have to answer that." Sesshoumaru took his coat off and slung it over the back of the armchair, looking around himself. "Are you on office duty by yourself, or what is this?"

"Oh no," said Shippou, gesturing towards the desk where a small black dot was jumping up and down, waving tiny fists and shouting something on the lines of _why doesn't anyone ever notice me?_ "Myoga is here, too."

"Ah. Well, do you have anything for me?"

"Oh yes, of course." Shippou ducked back into the other room for moment and came back with his arms full of paper. Sesshoumaru paled slightly. He hated paperwork with a passion to match Koga's, although unlike Koga he usually found a way to worm out of it.

"Firstly..." Shippou took a sheet of paper from the top of the pile with some difficulty, "I learnt from last time, so here is your personal copy of Inu-yasha and Kagome's latest mail. They're in Venice and, apparently, not turning up much except the fact that Naraku was there, pretty recently. Secondly, here is a copy of yesterday's Evening Post. I marked the article."

"Article?" asked Sesshoumaru, completely at sea.

"_Crime Time for a Dime – the rise of fortune tellers in police investigations_, by Josie Carter. You had her to lunch."

"Oh!" Sesshoumaru lit up. "She's already got her article out? Wow, that's quick work. I'm impressed."

"Just what were you on about with her, anyway?" asked Shippou, frowning. "I seem to remember you pinning pictures of well-known journalists up on the wall and using them for dartboards. I also seem to remember you asking why, since we have such a thing as Pest Control, they haven't set up permanent base at some of the biggest newspaper offices. And now you're suddenly all matey with one of them? With one of the, I quote yourself, 'biggest worms to ever have pushed their big wet nose into someone's business, except possibly Inu-yasha when he was a fourteen-year-old brat'."

"Shippou," smiled Sesshoumaru, "sometimes you have to stand back on your morals."

"Those morals being...?"

"Certain journalists should be clobbered to death with their laptops or, better yet, be terminated sometime during the first three years of their life before they have time to start spreading their poisonous drivel into the world."

"I think you may be confusing morals with disturbing homicidal fantasies."

"My point is," said Sesshoumaru, ignoring him, "is that sometimes you have to join forces with the enemy. Such as when your goal is to catch another enemy. We had a very nice lunch, during which she gave me what _I_ wanted in exchange for what _she _wanted. I'm talking about information, not sexual favours," he added, as Shippou looked somewhat disgusted. "She was writing an article about fortune tellers as you may have noticed – apparently one had predicted the attack on the CIA. I got the name of this fortune teller and the means to contact her, and was also told about an earlier prediction she made... guess about what?"

"Dunno," said Shippou, who was still getting over the whole _she gave me what I wanted_ thing.

"About the break-in at the Midnight Bank. All too fluffy to be understood until after the break-in had actually happened, of course, but still. I suggest we go talk to her and see what we can find out. We are going to ask about paintings, screams and coffee machines."

"Sounds good," nodded Shippou. He had not read the article but knew its content very well anyway, having discussed it in depth with Nobby over lunch. "I'm on office duty tomorrow, too, so it'll have to be the day after that. What did you offer that reporter in return, by the way?"

"I told her that I was baffled, that I was certainly considering the possibility that the Midnight Bank case and the break-in at the CIA office were related – this is what the fortune teller had hinted – and I also told her we were taking the predictions very seriously."

"What – oh," Shippou said, realizing the implications. "That way she could print that an _agent_ was baffled, considered the connection possible and so on, and it would sound as if this had been a CIA member talking in an official capacity." He nodded in appreciation. "Nice loophole. I take it you suggested it?"

"Indeed," said Sesshoumaru modestly.

"I bow to your scheming expertise. Well, to get off the subject of journalists, because I think I may be allergic, I have some more things for you." He shifted his hold on the paperwork to hand Sesshoumaru a thick folder. "These are Ayame's credentials. And Sesshoumaru..." He looked troubled. "I'm not entirely certain she can be put above suspicion. I mean, if you have a look at..."

"She didn't do it," said Sesshoumaru.

"Look, I'm not blind and I can see there is or was something going on between her and Koga but we can't let that..."

"I know she didn't do it," Sesshoumaru interrupted, "because I know where she was that night."

Shippou's face went carefully blank.

"Oh for God's sake, is there only one thing on your mind?" Sesshoumaru exclaimed, looking thoroughly exasperated. "I mean yes, you are a seventeen-year-old boy and that explains a lot, but there are limits!"

Shippou thought this was very unfair, considering who was talking.

"I've been _talking_ to her, and she has a watertight alibi," Sesshoumaru went on. "There is no way she could have been able to be at the Midnight Bank at the time. I know this."

"Then why hasn't she said this to the police?"

"Um, yes," said Sesshoumaru, looking a bit uncomfortable. "It's sort of complicated." He paused. "Do not repeat this to Koga. I don't want him getting the wrong ideas."

"Of course not," said Shippou indignantly. "I'm not a gossip like some I could mention."

"I don't gossip. I inform about recent events."

"Of course. Well, about this Ayame – she's a perfect suspect. Just take a look at that folder and you'll see why." As Sesshoumaru opened the file and started leafing through the sheets of paper he continued, "She has a good three years of Technical Education under her belt, and several additional university courses in electronics. Top grades and best of her class every time. She could easily have manipulated those security cameras."

"She could," Sesshoumaru agreed, looking at a particularly glowing report of Ayame's progress in an electronics course in high school. "But she didn't break into that vault. Is that it on the paper front, then?"

"Are you kidding me?" Shippou unceremoniously dumped the rest of the paper onto Sesshoumaru. "These are the records of how those art pieces you asked me to check up on have circulated these past few years. So far I haven't been able to trace more than five. They have really been out of the circulation for a while, all of them. But the ones I have found are very interesting – take this one for example..." He tapped a photo stapled to the topmost wad of paper. "The _Diamond's Tear_, a fifteenth-century pendant manufactured somewhere in the south of France. It's a very coveted piece, the last of a collection made by..."

"I get it, you know your art," Sesshoumaru interrupted, already irritated from trying to keep all the paper he'd been given from slipping. "Just get to the important stuff, OK?"

"This _is_ important," Shippou protested, an art connoisseur in the making, but did as he was told. "Alright, the _Diamond's Tear_ was stolen eight years ago from a museum in Vienna, Switzerland. Since then there has been no word of it, until just over half a year ago when it was sold to a private collector. This is characteristic for all of the pieces on your list. They have been gone from the market for a long time, and have all appeared again in the last year."

"With 'appeared'... you mean on the black market?"

"No, nothing that official," said Shippou solemnly, shaking his head. "In each case it's been the same procedure – a collector has been offered a deal and has then been able to set a meeting, inspect the item and then buy it. None have refused the offer. Each deal has been highly private and very secretive, and I doubt hardly anyone but the ones who were there know about it."

"And who were there?"

"Well, naturally the seller and the buyer, or rather their representatives. Then of course experts from both sides, to verify the authenticity of the piece. Bodyguards – in this kind of deals there will always be suspicion of violence or a set-up."

On the desk, a tiny voice shouted that if some people didn't start paying it attention real soon, more violence would be forthcoming very soon and very violently. Sesshoumaru ignored it.

"So how have you found out about this then?" he asked.

Shippou shrugged. "Primarily contacts. Art dealers and experts in different areas. The people in this world are awful gossips, and there are always rumours. No matter how quiet a deal is, word gets around. One guy I got hold of had actually been present at one of these deals to verify that _Devil on the Rocks_ – a painting," he added at Sesshoumaru's nonplussed expression, wondering why on earth he put up with people who couldn't tell _Mona Lisa_ from _Whistler's Mother_ without a title plate, "was the actual, original one. It was, by the way."

"And he told you about this meeting? The one that was so hush-hush, _speak and we'll cut your throat_?"

"He owes me," said Shippou simply. "Anyway, the rest were harder to find out – I've been following up on practically every rumour, trying all the tips my friends gave me, finding out all the potential buyers for each item and then hacking into their computers... takes ages."

"I'm impressed," said Sesshoumaru sincerely. "This is great. You don't have to keep going with this investigation – this is quite enough to confirm… what I wanted to have confirmed. I'll take this," he heaved the pile of paper into a better position, "and I'll be off. I'll call you about seeing the fortune teller!"

"Sure. But hey!"

Sesshoumaru stopped in the door.

"You're not going to tell me what this is all about?" asked Shippou. Sesshoumaru appeared to think about it for a while, and then shook his head with a smile.

"No," he said, "I don't think so. Not quite yet, anyway."

"What? Hey!" ...But Sesshoumaru was gone.

Shippou sighed. "Do you sometimes feel a bit like you don't exist?" he asked philosophically, turning to the black dot on the desk. It burst into tears.

……………………………

_This chapter was a bit of an intermezzo… but the plot will start to move along now. (Haven't I already said that?) Well, it will, so there. (Uh…)_

_So I have four more days left before I quit my job. I have no idea what to do after that… Hopefully I'll be able to work for my friend a couple of days a week, so as to have at least enough money for the rent. And how does this concern us, you ask? Well, when I have a bit more free time I might be able to update a bit more often! (Yaaaay) I hope so, anyway. _

_Well, until next chapter, have fun! Buh-bye now. ;) _


	8. Come Scry With Me

Come Scry With Me

Madam Vutout was closing up shop (tent) when the two men arrived, one smiling charmingly and the other, younger looking slightly disgruntled.

"And what can I help you with?" Madam Vutout asked, straightening up and dropping the tarot cards she had been gathering up. "Do you want a reading of your future, or your present? Guidance in your love life or a tale of what lies in store for you during the next week? Whatever you want I will do my best to help you." She smiled at them, and had her smile returned by the older one. (The younger rolled his eyes.)

"We would like to talk to you about a past prediction you made, actually," the older one then answered her. "About what happened at the Midnight Bank, and at the CIA base here in town..."

"Are you another one of those cops?" she asked. God knew she had enough of those to last a lifetime... "I'm not talking to any more cops. If you want to yell at anyone, find that journalist. I didn't tell her to say I was helping you or anything." Although, of course, it had been excellent publicity – just as she had known it would be.

"Oh, but I'm not a cop," said the man earnestly, taking a few steps towards her. "I'm just... you know..." He smiled ruefully and glanced at his friend uncertainly, but then seemed to think that _what the hell_ and beamed. "I'm _such_ a big fan of yours! The way you know exactly what's going to happen, I just think that's the coolest thing _ever_! I was just wondering... um... could you tell me a bit more about it?"

"But of course." She smiled at him again. Fans like these were always so cute, it was hard to resist. "I don't think your friend is much too amused though..." She glanced at the younger man, who mouthed "you don't say", stubbornly staring in the other direction. "If you don't want to sit in, feel free to wander around the area. Just say I told you it was alright, and you'll be allowed to go anywhere." She couldn't see any harm in letting the young doubter get free access to the circus area – and it was best to get him out of the way and not risk having him ruin the mood. The guy shrugged, as if unwilling to accept the favour from her, but ambled off anyway, hands in his pockets. She looked after him for a moment and then turned back to the other man, who was all but wagging his tail in anticipation.

"Well now," she said. "Why don't you come into my tent?"

……………………………

"So you're sure she wasn't here on the night of the fifth of December?" asked Shippou.

"Yeah," said the juggler. He was preparing for his show that night, polishing the swords he'd be juggling and making sure they were nice and sharp. (The last thing was something Shippou had a hard time understanding. If it was him, he'd be making sure they were nice and blunt.) "'Course, she's gone most nights. Her thing is more of a day show, you know? People don't think at nine p.m. that 'oh, I would like my fortune told, let's go down to the circus'."

"Yeah," Shippou agreed, frowning. The juggler regarded him with mild curiousity.

"Why do you want to know, anyway?"

Shippou started, and then frowned again, more darkly this time. "Because I may be forced to kill someone," he said tightly. "My girlfriend's been saying she's come here for readings that night, and some others."

"Ah." The juggler lifted a hand to pat Shippou's shoulder sympathetically, thought better of it and put the sword down first. "Tough one, mate."

"I wish I knew who he was," Shippou growled. "I mean, there's a guy out there who thinks he can just take my girlfriend? I ought to take his fucking neck and... why would she mention Madam Vutout as her alibi, anyway? She must know her somehow... wait!" His eyes were suddenly lit up with realization. "Who does Madam Vutout hang with? It might be one of them!"

"Easy," said the juggler, patting his shoulder again. "I doubt it. Her best friend in the circus is the manager, and he's pushing sixty. The rest of her close mates are all the same age, you know. If your girl went for one of them you should probably be quite glad to get rid of her."

"Oh." Shippou looked disappointed. "And there's no one here in town, like a nephew or something of a suitable age?"

"Sorry, mate." The juggler shook his head. "I don't know much of her family and stuff. Yeah, we're all a team here and we all know each other reasonably well, but many don't really talk about their life outside the circus. Her included." He shrugged apologetically as Shippou drooped yet further. Then, suddenly, he smacked his fist into his other hand.

"Actually," he said, smiling, "I do remember her talking on the phone a couple of times with some guy called Kag, which I would have thought was short for a girl's name..." He shrugged. "But it _is_ a guy though, I know, because once I heard her say _"Come on Juro, get me Kag on the phone again. No, I don't want to talk to you, I want to talk to him."_ From what I could gather he seemed pretty much younger than her."

"That might be him!" Shippou exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "Or wait, maybe it's even _them_! The bastards!" He looked positively livid for a few seconds, but then seemed to calm himself a little and offered the other his hand. "Well, thank you for all your help."

"Sure," replied the juggler easily, shaking hands with him. "Only, if you do kill the guy – or guys, if it turns out to be that bad – try not to mention that I gave you the push in the right direction, alright?"

"Alright," grinned Shippou and left, muttering under his breath about how he would _first strangle him, almost but not quite to the point of death, and while he was still getting his breath back..._

……………………………_  
_

Shippou and Sesshoumaru met up just outside the circus area to compare results.

"She couldn't tell you what weather it would be tomorrow if she so got a million," said Sesshoumaru, by way of greeting. "Then, maybe. If she got to go home and watch the report on TV first."

"What you mean is she's a fraud."

"Aren't they all," sighed Sesshoumaru. "I just wanted to make sure because once in a while, there are those who _can_ scry a tad of the future. I needn't have bothered. I gushed about her work for a quarter of an hour and then asked to have my fortune read – it would be sooo cool to have it done by my role model, giggle, giggle. (The things I do in the pursuit of justice…) Anyway, she gladly told me you and I would have a long and beautiful future when I hinted that I was worried about our relationship."

"And just why did you choose that example?" asked Shippou warily, edging away from him. Sesshoumaru looked at him, uncomprehending.

"Because it was improbable and stupid and a scenario that wasn't in the least likely to happen, of course. I wanted an assurance she couldn't read the future one little bit."

"Oh. Just wanted to make sure."

"Anyway, I questioned her about the CIA break-in and the only conclusion is that either she is a real clairvoyant, or she has contact with someone who was there. Since we can now with certainty rule out the first possibility, it must be the second. There's no way she could know all the details otherwise, especially some that, like the broken coffee machine, weren't even there until _after_ the break-in. She knows one of them."

"It's Kag'n'Juro," said Shippou. Sesshoumaru stared at him for a second, dumbfounded, but then got his bearings back.

"Good!" he said. "Let's bring him in."

"In?" Shippou frowned. "In where?"

"Don't know, I've just always wanted to say that."

"And in _from_ where?" Shippou continued, not about to let the comment slide that easily. "That guy is as easy to get hold of as Inu-yasha when he has a dental appointment. Mainly because he's so insane his body and his mind aren't always in the same place so even without having lied he could be ten miles away from where he said he would be."

"Stop being pessimistic!" Sesshoumaru smiled. He thumped his colleague on the back, making him cough, and then started leading the way to his car. "We'll think of something. Eventually."

"Possibly."

"How about the Madam, by the way? Did you find out about her?"

"Yup, she was gone on the night of the CIA job. It's a pity she's old enough to be my gran, because she would be a perfect suspect otherwise."

"She could still do it. There are old thieves. Look at Sean Connery."

"He's not a thief."

"He plays one in a movie."

"There is, in fact, a slight difference between _playing_ a thief and actually being one."

"But still."

"OK, OK! She still didn't do it. I had a look at the recordings from the security cameras and the ones caught on it are three men and one woman, whose face shows clearly and who is definitely not our Madam. Can't remember ever having seen her before, but I printed a picture and sent it to Sota so we'll know within a day or so if she's a part of the T.U.T.U."

"Alright! Finally we're getting somewhere with this. Do you want to take an afternoon off? Because I think we've earned it. We're just going to stop by the office first and drop off some files on Naraku I had copies of at home."

"How much have we lost, really?"

"Over sixty-five percent of our material. We still have all the results from our own investigations, plus some (illegal, but don't tell) copies of the CIA's material... that's the files I brought now. But everything about the poison imp spell is gone, every shred of evidence against him in the Texas incident is gone, all the records of his phone calls and bank transfers are gone..." He sighed deeply as he unlocked the car. "Some of this we'll be able to get back, but it'll be a long time before we have as strong a case against him again. Probably one or two months."

"Oh, we hate him."

"Oh, yes we do. Even when on the other side of the Atlantic – maybe – he's able to pull enough strings back here to destroy the case against himself. He is one powerful demon."

"I sure hope Kagome and Inu-yasha get to him before the police do."

"So does everyone else – including the police."

When they got to the office they found the door closed, and locked. "Who's on office duty today?" asked Sesshoumaru, and tried the door handle. It wouldn't budge. (A common effect of a locked door, in fact.) Shippou made a how-the-hell-am-I-supposed-to-know-I'm-not-Koga gesture and knocked on the door.

"Hello?" he called. "Is there anyone there? And if not, where the hell are the ones who are _supposed_ to be there?"

"You can't ask an empty room – " Sesshoumaru began, but at that moment a voice spoke on the other side of the door, growling out a question.

"Password?"

Shippou and Sesshoumaru regarded each other in complete bewilderment.

"What are you talking about?" asked Shippou finally (feeling slightly stupid for talking to a door but it wasn't as if he had a choice). "What password? We don't have a password to get into our own bloody office! Just who are you, anyway?"

"Actually, it's more of a pass-_phrase_," said the voice, giving no sign that it had heard. "Starts with G."

"What?"

"Fine, fine. I'll give you the first word. Goshinki."

"Goshinki, you bastard, is that you?"

There was a pause.

"Well, I was thinking something more on the lines of _Goshinki is handsome and buff and we'd all be throwing ourselves at his feet and begging him to snog us senseless if we weren't uncompromisingly straight_ but since it's you..." The door opened, to reveal a grinning Goshinki standing by it and, beyond him, a bored Kagura lounging in the armchair. "How are you doing?"

"Pretty good, discounting the fact that some idiot chooses to spend his time locking us out of our agency," answered Sesshoumaru. "And you? Why are you two on office duty? I thought you weren't supposed to ever be on this shift, Goshinki, seeing as the little time we can get with you is so precious."

"You warm my heart, darling. Well, the Nerds had something to do today and I said I'd jump in. And since the restaurant is closed for a while, courtesy of certain bastard assassins, Kagura said she could just as well join me as sit at home staring at the wall."

"And you don't have anyone else you might spend the day with, Kagura?" asked Shippou innocently, following Sesshoumaru into the room. Kagura glared at him.

"If you're insinuating things about Jinenji again," she said, "he's working until ten tonight."

"Ah."

"And before you ask, I do not keep track of his schedule every day of the week."

"Of course not."

"Only the days I'm free."

"OK."

"Stop smirking or I'll drive your nose through the back of your skull."

"I can see why he likes you."

"Shut up."

"So what's up?" asked Goshinki, offering the chair behind the desk to Sesshoumaru and leaning back against the wall instead. "What are you doing right now? I heard from Koga that some little dick broke into the CIA's office and made off with all our information about Naraku The Creep, is that true?"

"Afraid so. We're starting from scratch."

"WHAT!" Kagura flew out of her chair. "You lost everything you had on him? You mean all the times you've stolen Goshinki from the restaurant have been for _nothing_? Goshinki, why haven't you told me any of this!"

"Because I wanted more targets in the room when you found out," answered Goshinki, and pointed at the two other YSA members. "Hit one of them instead of me! It's not my fault!"

"Kagura, calm down," said Sesshoumaru (happy in the knowledge that he was more or less safe behind the desk). "All our own, private investigations are still here. It's only the CIA's material that's gone, and I even managed to lift a couple of files before the break-in so we still have some of that, too. And as I said, our own files are completely intact. Just see here..." He opened a drawer in the desk with a flourish.

It was empty.

There was a dry snap, and then another, that sounded _exactly_ like someone was cracking their knuckles in anticipation of a good thrashing. "You were saying?" said Kagura, sweetly.

"Erm," said Sesshoumaru. "Um. Yes. I was saying, go for Shippou. He's a gentleman and won't hit back."

"Sometimes I really hate you guys," muttered Shippou, and ran.

……………………………

"WHAT THE HELL!" Inu-yasha yelled, and bounced off the bed to join Kagome by the computer. "They've done _what_?"

"All gone, apparently," said Kagome in exasperation, hitting the scroll down button viciously. "First the CIA is broken into, and then they hit our office just a week later! I could kill them!"

"I could kill Sesshoumaru," said Inu-yasha. "He didn't think that maybe keeping separate copies at home would be a good idea? The stupid moron!"

"You know what he's like around paperwork. 'The less the better' is his motto," sighed Kagome. "Damn damn damn damn. Well, we should be happy about the little material we still have, I guess."

"How much is that exactly?"

"Four of the CIA's files. May Naraku burn in hell forever and ever and ever."

Inu-yasha leaned forward and hit the scroll down button, scanning the e-mail for more information. "Hey, it says here they might know who did it! That's good, maybe they can get some of the files back if they scare him or her enough..."

"Don't think so," said Kagome, who was a faster reader and had already reached the name. "It's Kag'n'Juro. If I know him, he probably used it as kindling when he was setting a house on fire."

"More like when he was setting a dog on fire," muttered Inu-yasha. "Or worse, a motorbike."

"Have I ever told you that your priorities are very often slightly warped?"

"Today?"

Kagome rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the e-mail. "There's nothing we can do about the break-ins while we're here," she sighed, "so we'll just have to count on the guys back home to first find who did it and then jump repeatedly on their fingers. Meanwhile, what we can do is keep looking for the wolf in nice clothes who lies behind it all. I set some of Sota's friends on keeping guard over all the guys here we've gone to see, and told them to call the minute they see someone even resembling Naraku."

"Anything interesting?"

"Not really... A couple of false alarms from Marco's flat, after they'd seen someone with long black hair, but unless Naraku has switched gender since we saw him last it wasn't him. None of the other guys has had very many comings and goings at all. They seem to lead pretty low-key lives. (Marco is an exception. He really is like a pre-Sango Miroku.) I guess we can rule out the possibility that Naraku is with any of them – because Sota's guys are _good_. I don't think they would have missed him."

"OK, so the guy knew we were investigating him almost before we did, decided to run for it, seemingly vanished from the face of the earth and is still wielding enough power back home to pull off massive break-in schemes like the one at the CIA. I would almost respect the man if I hadn't been to busy being pissed off with him for making off with all our info."

Kagome grinned and shut the computer down. "While on the subject of stolen property," she said, although it wasn't entirely clear if she was still referring to the break-in at their office or if she was now talking about the computer – technically Sesshoumaru's. "Did you hear that Mr Ipsen's room got broken into?"

"Really? The Norwegian guy? Poor dude. How did you find out?"

"The little guy who signed us in, you know – does anything for me now that he's afraid I'll torture him inventively if he doesn't follow my every whim. But that's not important. What is important, however, is this: the ones who went into Mr Ipsen's room, what if they got the wrong one? He lives right next door to us."

"Does he? I haven't seen him once in the week we've been here."

"Me neither, but he does. I checked. And maybe they weren't just run-of-the-mill burglars – maybe they were sent by Naraku to check us out."

"Maybe it's time we moved on, is that what you're saying?"

"Something like that. Let's stay for only a few days more, then get moving."

"Where to?"

"I'm not sure. We still have to see that guy... Kanna's old accountant when she was working here... he might have heard something. It would be good to get at least a hunch of where Naraku's going."

"Sure. So where does this guy live?"

"Don't worry, we can walk there."

"I love you."

"It bothers me slightly that you're saying that only because I offered you an alternative to boating."

……………………………

_Tally Ho! Here I thought, silly me, that I'd have lots of free time once I quit my job. Think again, Fanny. My first week of freedom was spent in bed with 38,5 degrees' fever. (The second time in my entire life I have a fever that high.) And since then I've been working every couple of days at my friend's store, and when I haven't been doing that I've been out looking for an apartment. I need to get my own place. I mean, really. You can only live with people who refuse to vacuum clean for so long. _

_But enough of me. Hope you're all good, hope you still like the story… well, you know the drill. _

_Please reveiw if you feel like it! It means the world to me :)_


	9. In Two Minds

In Two Minds

It was the 13th of December, half past eleven at night, and at the crossing of Niro Street and Crookshanks Alley two figures could be seen, silhouetted against the light of a street lamp. And if one moved closer, one might hear the following conversation…

"Cigarette?"

"I don't smoke."

"Ah, right."

"And neither do you."

"Well, no. But it felt so appropriate, somehow."

"Be serious. You were saying something about the Naraku information that got lifted?"

"Turns out Koga had taken some stuff home to read up on. He suddenly got some workaholic kick. Spiderman was almost worried."

"Really, he was? Um, how could you tell? Because I always find it hard to see even just his _face_, or, um, faces... let alone his _expression_..."

"He left me a note about it."

"Oh, OK. Well, how much does that leave us with then? Koga having some information at home, I mean."

"We're still completely at sea. We're starting over, from the very beginning. So you know all those searches you did, and all that time you spent hacking into private accounts and trying to find out incriminating stuff about him..."

"Don't tell me."

"I wasn't going to. I'm thinking you can draw the necessary conclusions yourself."

"You do realize I don't have a private life already as it is and this will only serve to destroy it further. If I was working in a regular job the overtime I put in would be enough to make me financially independent."

"I promise, you would be so bored."

"You'd know all about what it's like being financially independent, of course."

"There's no need to sound so sarcastic – I do know. Our old man left me and Inu-yasha quite a fortune when he passed away. Enough, in fact, to free us from the need of working for at least a decade or two."

"Oh yeah? So what happened?"

"Inu-yasha needed to make bail and that was the last we saw of the old man's savings."

……………………………

Kageromaru stuck his head out of the door, looking around the street and assuring it was empty before slipping out of his house. He chuckled, a little, and then closed the door softly behind him, thinking about the very successful jobs he had done – not only one, not two, but _three_! Naraku would be pleased, he knew.

He traipsed down the steps leading up to his front door, feet moving in a strange little dance – one left, two down, skip to the right and half the length of his own foot forwards then right and one step wrong meant if not death (he spared those traps for the interior of his house) then at least severe pain. He frowned thoughtfully as he passed step number seven on the stairs. He'd really have to check the hidden bear trap on that one soon; make sure it was still well-oiled and ready to spring.

A house like his, it needed looking after.

He raised a finger delicately and touched the fishing wire stretched between his gateposts – still nice and taut, and at precisely neck height. (For the average person, that was. It would hit Goshinki in the stomach and Jaken wouldn't notice it unless he was carrying that staff he persisted in keeping. Myoga would pass unharmed as well, unless he made a _really_ unlucky jump.) He crouched down to pass under it, tip-toed a few steps to avoid releasing the trap just in front of the gate and so finally made it out of his own home alive. Well, no matter if it was hard for him to get in or out, as long as it was for anyone else, too. No one, absolutely no one, should be able to get into his home.

Kageromaru wasn't sure why, but somewhere in the back of the chaos that was his mind he knew it had to be that way.

He looked around himself a second time, peering into every shadow, and then started walking down the street, skipping on every alternative step. He was full of energy today, feeling up to almost anything. Days like these were the ones when he came up with his best plans. Like breaking into the YSA's office to make sure they had zip on Naraku – that had been all his own idea. Tsubaki couldn't take any credit for it.

Kageromaru giggled to himself. He would prove to Naraku that he was one to be trusted, confided in. He would prove his worth – not that there were any doubt as it was, but still... He would prove he was a candidate for partnership with Naraku. Nodding repeatedly to himself, he turned a corner and started walking down the side street.

He had just enough time to notice the woman blocking his way before Juromaru took over.

……………………………

"So did you find out about the girl, by the way? The one at the CIA?"

"Yeah, Sota rang me this morning. She's called Tsubaki. He knew her pretty well; went an Artful Course with her back when they were in training, in fact."

"A what course?"

"Artful. It's a course on picking pockets. Named after the Artful Dodger, in Oliver Twist."

"What is the T.U.T.U., an organisation for thieves or an English Literature club? Christ. Well, what about her? Was she any good? Does he have any contact with her still?"

"Nah. She left the T.U.T.U. a couple of years ago, said she'd rather work on her own. There's been virtually no word from her in all that time – no one has had a clue of what she's doing. The common belief was that she'd quit the business completely. Except for one little thing..."

"What?"

"There were some rumours that she was attempting a job on the Midnight Bank, last year. Nothing very serious, but apparently she's been interested in it, for the challenge if nothing else. So it is possible that she has been sussing it out ever since."

"She would have been well prepared to do it now, in other words."

"You think she did that job, too, then?"

"I'm quite sure of it. The scents at the CIA and the ones at the Midnight Bank were very similar – I could say identical, but too much time had passed since the break-in when I visited the bank to give me a complete scent pattern and so I can't be a hundred percent certain."

"But you think that's the case."

"Yes."

"I wonder if it's important, though. The job at the Midnight Bank has no bearing on our case."

"No, but for Koga's sake I'd like to be able to free Ayame. Well, for my sake too, since he'll probably take all his aggressions out on me if she's declared guilty."

"So what's up between those two, anyway?"

"I could tell you, but then I'd be forced to kill you."

"Oh, come on."

……………………………

Juromaru was largely instinct and very little actual intellect. This made him, by standard definition, completely nuts and extremely dangerous.

He ducked the arm that flew at him, crouching down and then rising up again so quickly it was as if his entire body was one taut spring. He leapt at his attacker, no thought in his head but the desire to maul that pretty face. Unfortunately, the pretty face in question belonged to someone who was not only a very good fighter but also knew how he worked. She neatly sidestepped his attack and then spun around, giving him a good kick in the stomach as he turned around to face her again. Winded and shocked, he reeled backwards for moment, giving her time to point a gun straight at his head.

Any normal person would, when caught in that situation, freeze. But not Juromaru. His mind was incapable of making the connection gun – pain – death (uh, mine). And thus, he just launched himself at the woman again, not heeding the weapon in the slightest.

This was usually enough of a surprise to give him the advantage he needed. Not this time, however. An arm went around his neck before he reached her, and yanked him back hard.

"Long time, no see, Juromaru," said Goshinki, and grinned.

……………………………

"You know, this kind of explains why Madam Vutout said that there were five people at the break-in."

"Hm? Why?"

"Well, there were four people there, and she said that it was a group of five. But Kag'n'Juro was one of those guys, and he's really two people in one. So she was kind of right in saying it was five, not four. But something about that bothers me."

"What?"

"Well, she allowed that article about her to be published... you know, the one written by your girlfriend..."

"I just like her car."

"Yeah, yeah. Point is, Madam Vutout probably allowed that article to be written because she knew it would be good publicity. She knew that the more details she included, the more authentic her prediction would seem. Like the coffee machine – I'm pretty sure she got Kag'n'Juro to break it while he was there, only to give that extra perk to her story. Why, then, did she say the burglars were five in number? That seems almost as if she was counting on Kag'n'Juro being arrested."

"I'm not sure. I think it was just a minor detail she added for kicks. She might have thought that if ever Kag'n'Juro was caught, it would be an extra little perk, but for now it was just a private joke to herself. No one would attach any great importance to the number of burglars anyway – not when she had been so accurate in every other prediction."

"Maybe so. She's pretty cold anyway, to use her friend like that purely for her own profit."

"If it's anything Naraku and his chums are known for, it's hardly their trustworthiness and loyalty, is it?"

……………………………

Juromaru hissed and spat, kicking out behind him and writhing wildly in Goshinki's vice-like grip. Goshinki merely laughed, pinning the arms of his former colleague firmly to his sides.

"You haven't changed much, have you?" he asked cheerfully. "Still a crazy bastard. Watch it!" Juromaru had lunged forward suddenly, aiming to sink his teeth into Goshinki's arm. "I don't want those chomps anywhere near me, thank you! Alright, Kageromaru, come on out. I'm starting to tire of this screwed-up side of yours. Juromaru, go away, come on."

"What makes you think I'll concede to do anything you say?" hissed the voice of Kageromaru, and then Juromaru was back again and trying with renewed vigour to free himself, his pupils small as pinpricks in his mad eyes. Kagura watched him with badly disguised contempt, keeping her gun aimed at him although she knew the threat of it meant little or nothing to his crazed mind.

"It's easier to talk to you, Kageromaru," Goshinki said, "mainly because you can at least remember what speech means. As much as I like this other version of you – not really – he's a pain in the ass and he doesn't make any recognisable noises except for his trademark maniacal laughter. And we'd like to be able to talk to you. If we don't talk, you see, we might be forced to do other things not half as pleasant."

There was a brief pause and then the form of Kag'n'Juro stilled as Kageromaru – not sane in the conventional sense but still able to hold a conversation – took over again.

"Alright," he said. "I'm listening."

……………………………

"Who was that?"

"Goshinki and Kagura, calling to say they just got him."

"Oh, great. Let's head over to the office, then, so we can be there to greet them. I have to say, I'm _really_ looking forward to interrogating this guy."

"Stop rubbing your hands together like that. It's creepy."

……………………………

Kageromaru glared up at his interrogators, arms folded across his chest and mouth set in a thin line of non-cooperation. He had not said a word since Goshinki and Kagura brought him to the YSA office, and he looked like this was a trend he would be continuing.

Sesshoumaru didn't mind – rather, he was happy that no one was trying to interrupt his speech (he was pretty proud of it).

"...you have the right to remain silent because anything you say can and will be used against you, count on that; however, the right to silence is one I'm sure you'll give up on pretty soon because if you don't start talking we will give you a good many reasons to if not talk then at least scream. Loudly. We have evidence of your involvement in both the burglary of the CIA and our own office so it's no use trying to deny it, but if you tell us about it we might be nice and let you walk out of here instead of crawl or possibly have to be carried. You can be charged with – among other things – breaking and entering, destroying evidence and pissing me off royally. Do you have anything to say?"

"Turn that lamp off," said Kageromaru, squinting at the light. "It's right in my eyes."

"You've been watching way too many police movies lately, Sessh," sighed Shippou, and turned the lamp in another direction. "However... Kageromaru, what Sesshoumaru says is essentially true, even if he does overdose on the drama a bit. We need information, quick, and we're not picky about how we get it. If torturing you a bit will work, we know lots of people who wouldn't be above it. Three of them are in this room."

"Four," said Kagura. Shippou frowned at her.

"Three. I'm sorry to say I _am_ above it."

"Still four. If it comes to torment of that little worm – and let me tell you now that I would have no objections – I will do the work of two people."

"I'm afraid you don't get it," said Kageromaru quietly. He had a small, self-satisfied and very scary smile on his face. "Threats like that don't work on me. I know you don't have the spine to carry them out."

"Oh, _don't_ I," said Kagura. There was a smile on her face, too. Somehow, it was even more frightening than Kageromaru's.

Kageromaru ignored her, and continued, "And even if I – this is highly improbable but for the sake of hypothesis – would be intimidated by your lukewarm threats there would be no information to gain from me. I was a mere accomplice in these burglaries."

"Of course," nodded Shippou. "Tsubaki was the leader. And the other two?"

Kagomaru waved it away. "Some members of some gang or something. No people of great importance. They were there as backup, nothing more. And for getting rid of guards, should there happen to be any in the way. I could have managed by myself, of course, but Naraku insisted on having professionals..."

Shippou glanced at Sesshoumaru, who mouthed _Probably the Saimyoshi_. Shippou nodded and turned back to Kageromaru.

"Tsubaki was the leader, of course. We know that. But from what I can gather, you were principal in planning the burglaries. Is it not so?" This was pure guesswork. Shippou had no idea of what Kageromaru had or hadn't done, but sensed that flattering him like this might just make him open up.

It did.

"Yes, I was," Kageromaru replied, sitting up straighter and leaning forward, eager to explain. "I planned the CIA break-in with her, no matter what she says otherwise. And I alone initiated the attack on the YSA offices."

"The offices you are in right now, you mean," said Sesshoumaru coldly. He had received a terse e-mail from Inu-yasha, calling him an incompetent idiot for not foreseeing and preparing for an attack on their files, and was as a result very touchy about the whole affair. Shippou glared at him to shut him up, not wanting Kageromaru to be distracted by anything – at least, not until he had told them everything he knew about the break-ins.

"Kageromaru," he said, "our informant tells us Tsubaki is the one who is in charge of the stolen information from the CIA." (This was still only Shippou's guesses. If they actually had an informant, their lives would be so much easier.) "But the stuff you stole from us, here, what did you do with that?"

Kageromaru shrugged. "Don't know. I can't remember."

"Oh yeah?" Kagura cracked her knuckles, taking a few rapid steps forward. "Well, can you remember what it was like having combat training with me?"

"Kagura, no!" Shippou grabbed her hand before she had time to punch Kageromaru right in the nose. "I think he may actually be telling the truth. He's nuts, remember? There are two minds in that body, and between them it's not so strange if a memory or two should fall between the cracks."

"I'll gladly give that head a couple of more cracks, thank you."

"But we need him to speak! Calm down!"

"So, Kageromaru," said Sesshoumaru, while Shippou held Kagura back and Goshinki – not in the least interested by the proceedings – examined Hiten's private stash with a happy grin, "this Tsubaki. If we wanted to have a little chat with her, where would we find her?"

"If I knew I wouldn't tell you," grinned Kageromaru. "Well, to save me from making that decision, I actually don't know. We kept in contact by phone."

"Her phone number."

"Yes?"

"Give it to us."

"No."

"Give it to us, please."

"OK."

"What?"

"I don't care," said Kageromaru, shrugging. "It's her problem. If you want the stupid number, take it. Take my phone while you're at it."

Sesshoumaru stared at him, unsettled by this very unusual response. Shippou stepped in instead and took the offered phone.

"Thank you," he said. "Glad to see you're willing to cooperate."

"Whatever," said Kageromaru.

One hour and many similar "whatever"-s later they had established what had happened at the CIA. Kag'n'Juro, Tsubaki and the two muscle men had arrived at the CIA. Tsubaki's shikigami, a snake with various powers, had put the security cameras and alarms more or less out of action. (Apparently she had a newly developed talent for disturbing electrical appliances.) They had found the records of the Naraku investigation and removed them, and Kageromaru had been set to erase all the information from the computer network.

"How did he know how to do that, then?" muttered Sesshoumaru. Shippou scoffed.

"Child's play," he said derisively. "I used to access the CIA network and poke around simply for something to do during my free periods while I was still at school."

"...And you wonder why they kicked you out?"

The two Saimyoshi members had been sent to the backup room to lift the rest of the information. There had been no guards in their immediate way since Tsubaki had mapped the routines very well and knew just how to avoid them – something the Saimyoshi had apparently been very disappointed by.

"But how did you know where to find all the different records and files?" asked Shippou. Kageromaru shrugged.

"I didn't. Tsubaki did. She was the one who had all the actual inside information. The rest of us were there as carriers."

"OK. And then you decided that just to make sure you'd break into our office as well?"

"Yup," said Kageromaru, proudly. Somewhere in the background, Kagura growled.

Shippou remembered something he had been meaning to ask. "So, what about the Midnight Bank then? Were you in on that job, too?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Kageromaru shrugged. He seemed to do that a lot. "Naraku told me to."

"Naraku?" Shippou and Sesshoumaru looked at each other. (Goshinki and Kagura looked at each other and yawned.) "Was he the one who ordered the break-in at the Midnight Bank? What for?"

A shrug. "Don't know."

"Do you know _anything_?"

"Maybe."

"OK, then, what about Madam Vutout?" asked Shippou, suddenly remembering. "How do you know her?"

"Who?"

"Give it a rest." Sesshoumaru stood up, shaking his head. "I don't think we'll get any more out of him." Shippou shook his head in agreement, sighing.

"So what so we do now?" he asked. "We can't just let him go, he'll run straight to someone and tell."

"I don't _run to someone_," said Kageromaru indignantly. No one listened.

"We can't have him at the office."

"We wouldn't _have_ an office, come morning."

"And I'm guessing we don't really want to throw him in jail, either."

"We certainly don't. There are limits to what you can do to those poor prisoners."

"So what do we do with him, then? We're all out of choices."

"Are you?" asked Kagura and nudged Shippou aside, sitting down on the edge of his chair. "Don't forget, me and Goshinki are in on this too. And we have a pretty large flat, and we wouldn't mind giving Crazy Guy a right smack if he didn't behave. It would be safe to let him stay with us. We'll have him, no problem. Why are you looking so dubious, Shippou? Come on, it's not as if we'll be in any danger."

"I was thinking more about Kag'n'Juro's health, actually," said Shippou, but he was smiling slightly. "We want him to be alive and able to talk when Naraku finally goes to trial, after all."

"Hold on. I never agreed to witness at Naraku's trial," said Kageromaru, looking up sharply. Kagura gazed coolly at him.

"Did we say your agreeing or not agreeing came into the equation? I don't believe we did."

Half an hour later they had agreed that Kag'n'Juro would be staying with Kagura and Goshinki, that Shippou and Sesshoumaru were a phone call away if anything did happen, that they knew Jinenji as well so it was no worries, really, and that Kagura badly needed anger management.

"Whoever just said that can say goodbye to their jaw line," said Kagura.

……………………………

_Can't remember if I've said this before, but "Vutout" means "Seen all". I thought it was a fitting name for a fortune teller – even if she's a complete fake. Appearances are everything, right:)_


	10. A Spider By Any Other Name

A Spider By Any Other Name…

Inu-yasha and Kagome were walking at leisure through the streets of Venice, passing a cup of take-away coffee between them democratically. They had just been to see an old contact of Kanna's, and – surprise, surprise – learnt nothing. Naraku had visited him two weeks back, trying to wheedle out some information about Kanna's old gang, but had been sent packing pretty quickly.

"What I don't understand is _why_ he wouldn't help Naraku out," said Inu-yasha. "Kanna is still loyal, isn't she?"

"On the surface, yes." Kagome wrinkled her brow in thought. "I suppose she has to be – his reputation is what keeps the club alive back home. But don't you think that with him gone, she's probably got a whole lot looser reins? I don't think she'd openly work against him, but I don't think she'd give him access to her little circle of friends here, either. Naraku is clever, we've seen that before – imagine what he could do if given the leg up here in Venice. He'd rule the city in a year or two."

"And you're right, Kanna wouldn't want that," Inu-yasha nodded. "He's perfect the way he is now – she's still able to use his name when doing work for the club, but she can run it the way she wants. As long as he's weak and on the run, she's got her life ordered just as she likes it. Pity, really."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, if only she'd been a little less loyal to him, she could give us a few pointers in the right direction. And it would open a lot of doors at least here if we had her nod of approval. Remember how talkative Marco became once we mentioned her."

"Such a shame she hates our guts."

"Like I said. So it's Turkey next now, is it?"

"It's not as if we have any other ideas." Kagome snorted, drained the coffee and tossed the cup into a waste paper basket. "We'll have to employ Shippou-istic methods from here on in. Pick up on every single little rumour and don't give up until we can eliminate it beyond doubt."

"It's just so fucking frustrating," sighed Inu-yasha, shaking his head. "I can't help but feel that the trail of the little bastard grows colder by the day. Couldn't he at least have left one or two clues? He's a bad sport."

Kagome looked at him, then pursed her lips and appeared to be thinking hard. Inu-yasha sighed again.

"No, you can't put that on the list of charges. If they didn't accept 'acting smarmy' or 'slimy dress sense' as valid charges they're sure as hell not going to like 'being a bad sport', either."

"They're bad sports, too," said Kagome rebelliously. She sulked for a bit but then brightened up. "Well, if the trail is cold anyway we don't exactly have to _rush_ off to the airport now, do we? Let's enjoy ourselves today; we've earned it. What do you say to a romantic boat tour? Alright, so maybe that was a bad idea," Kagome conceded as she saw his horrified expression. "So what about a romantic walk, followed by dinner?"

Inu-yasha relaxed. "That I can live with," he agreed.

…………………………………

The next morning found them both too tired to even raise their hand and turn the alarm clock off (it kept ringing for ten minutes, to the obvious annoyance of one of their neighbours who kept banging on the wall for the same amount of time). This was normal for Inu-yasha, who had lived his life in that manner until Kagome came along and introduced the concept of rising before eleven o'clock, but for Kagome it was a mark of huge fatigue. Since they had no schedule to keep they agreed to break their habit of getting up at six thirty, and instead spend the morning in bed and have a late breakfast at the motel before they went to the airport. The morning passed peacefully, aside from a brief disagreement on what "late" meant – Kagome said nine and Inu-yasha one thirty – and at the compromised time of a quarter to ten they left for breakfast.

The breakfast room was full when they arrived, and they secured a table before making their way to the buffet. The group of backpackers were (loudly) making plans to go and see something in the centre of town and two Chinese couples who had arrived two days earlier were chattering away thirteen to the dozen, but all noise died away when there was a sudden, violent crash and a table toppled. Inu-yasha and Kagome turned quickly and saw two of the Swedes rush over to help someone who – it seemed – had somehow managed to overturn his own table.

"Are you alright, Mr Ipsen?" called a third Swede, standing up in his seat and peering anxiously towards the others.

"Bit accident-prone, that guy," whispered Inu-yasha to Kagome, who giggled. "First his room gets broken into and then he turns the breakfast room into a percussion orchestra." They watched as the man stood up with the help of the two Swedish backpackers, clutching his arms around his head, and then quickly exited the room.

"Poor guy. Seems like a bit of a goof." Kagome turned back around to the breakfast buffet. "Don't Norwegians and Swedes understand each other, by the way?"

"Think so."

"So why did the guy call out to him in English?"

Inu-yasha shrugged, carefree. "Don't know. Maybe Mr Ipsen speaks a strange kind of Norwegian or something."

"Maybe," said Kagome, and devoted herself to her breakfast.

Forty-five minutes later they had eaten, packed and were ready to go. While the reception guy tried hard to conceal his relief at the news that they were leaving and Inu-yasha went through the luggage one last time to make sure they hadn't forgotten anything, Kagome wrote a few comments in the guest book and signed them out.

"Mr Ipsen left just half an hour ago," she commented, looking at the name above theirs.

"Probably off to the hospital," said Inu-yasha. "He's bound to break a leg sooner or later, the way he's going, so maybe he decided to book a bed in the emergency ward in advance."

Kagome smiled at him, signed their names and turned the book around, pushing it back across the counter. And pulled it back quickly, staring at it.

"What's the matter?" asked Inu-yasha, leaving their bags and coming over to join her. She shook her head mutely and pointed at the name Red Ipsen. Upside down it became clear that what it spelt backwards was

(NE)_SPIDER_

They stared at each other.

"His room was broken into – "

" – by Kanna's men, because she wants to keep an eye on him – "

" – and we haven't ever had breakfast here at the motel before, but now that we did – "

" – he saw us and was so shocked he turned his table over – "

" – and he left as quick as he could. Hell!"

"We have to get to the airport _right now_."

Dropping the book back onto the counter, they rushed from the hotel. After a brief pause they rushed back in, picked up their luggage, and were off again.

The guy in the reception took the day off for celebration.

…………………………………

Sesshoumaru bit back an exclamation of undignified outrage, looked around to ensure that no one had noticed and waved for a waiter. After placing an order for a new coffee he settled back in his chair, smoothed out the print-out of Inu-yasha and Kagome's new e-mail (given to him only that morning) and kept reading.

"_We chased him all the way to the airport – he had a lead on us by half an hour but we got hold of some of Sota's associates and took a very short cut_

_Over the roofs. _

…_yes, over the roofs,_

_I mean, over the freaking roofs. _

_Sesshoumaru, is Inu-yasha scared of heights? _

_I bloody well am not. I'm just commenting on the fact that my life has turned into a bloody Indiana Jones movie. _

_Yes, yes. Back to the chase. We took a shortcut _

_OVER THE ROOFS_

_so we had probably decreased his lead by at least some when we got to the airport. However, there was still the small problem of finding out just where he went. We asked at the check-in desk – well, when we say asked… never mind, that's not important – if someone by the name of Onigumo had recently bought a ticket somewhere. He had, to Thailand. So there we were, rushing through the airport to find the gate for the Thailand flight and generally disturbing people by, for example, knocking their luggage over on our way past. _

_That was Kagome, not me. – Inu-yasha_

_Yes, because Inu-yasha wasn't satisfied with just the luggage; he pushed this German guy into a wall and sent his wife flying after. And in case you didn't know – German cursing sounds really bad. – Kagome _

_German in general sounds bad. – Inu-yasha_

_Anyway, when we had gone about halfway across the airport, we suddenly heard an announcement over the loudspeakers, calling a Mr Onigumo, because his flight was boarding and he hadn't showed up. _

_That was the flight for Copenhagen. Two minutes later another call came, this time for the flight to London. _

_We made our way to the closest check-in desk and made the girl – slip on the keyboard, "asked the girl nicely" was what I was going to write – check the entire register for bookings by one Onigumo, and Red Ipsen just to be sure. She found nothing on Ipsen, but it turned out that Onigumo had bought tickets on seven different flights, all leaving within the hour. _

_By now, someone had come up with the bright idea_

_That someone was me. – Inu-yasha_

_Good boy. – Kagome_

_that we should contact the airport security, and freeze Onigumo's passport while we were at it. Then we found out that he'd already left on one of the flights, one that had left for Paris five minutes before we arrived at the airport. _

_Alright, but that wasn't too hard though, was it? We contacted the plane and made them come back in, and when it arrived we went through the airplane to get our man. So we're bringing him back to the States on the next flight!_

Sesshoumaru would have grinned and looked pleased, but after the reading the heading of the e-mail ("WE HATE THAT SNIVELLING BALL OF SLIME MORE THAN SPINACH" rather than "YAY YAY WE GOT HIM"), he had the feeling things weren't going to turn out to have been quite that easy.

He was right, of course.

_Or not, _the e-mail continued. _The one in Onigumo's seat was a very bewildered old lady, who had been given the ticket by someone she described as a "very pleasant young man", although when she thought about it she couldn't quite remember why she had agreed to take the ticket and go to Paris when she was really on her way back to Ireland. _

_Naraku has great charm, and a certain way with words. THIS WILL BE VERY IMPORTANT AT THE TRIAL, SO BEAR IT IN MIND. – Kagome_

_Actually, on second thought I don't think we need to worry all that much. We have Sesshoumaru, after all. – Kagome. _

Sesshoumaru hesitated at that, wondering whether it was a compliment or not to be put on the same level as the smarmiest devil in the criminal world. As was in his nature, however, he decided that it was and proceeded to gloat about the distinction for a few minutes before returning to the e-mail.

_Our only choice was to wait and see if he turned up at any of the other flights he was scheduled for. We also put out his picture to all the security, and all the airport staff._

_He didn't arrive at any of the flights, and we were at a bit of a loss until finally we got lucky. _

Sesshoumaru raised his eyebrows.

_To Sesshoumaru, who just raised his eyebrows at the last sentence: we didn't mean "got lucky" in that way. – Inu-yasha._

Sesshoumaru shrugged.

_One of the guys at the check-in for a flight to Prague recognized him as a Mr Muso (another alias – how many does the guy need?) who had checked in with a passport that declared him to be from Poland (of all places). So that's the situation now – we're going to Prague. It pretty much sucks to have lived next door to the guy for a week without knowing, but at least now the trail is hot again and we'll – hopefully – have an easier time catching him now._

_Now when we have time to reflect over this, it all seems blatantly obvious. From what we've seen of Venice, it's a closed loop – everyone's connected to everyone else one way or another, and rumours spread faster than at a Gossips Unite meeting. _

_There's an organisation like that? I knew it! – Inu-yasha_

_It was a figure of speech, Inu-yasha. – Kagome_

_If he had joined up with anyone in the criminal world they would all have known about it within the hour. But when Kanna has so many connections with that city, for us it seemed very natural for him to want to seek shelter with one of her friends. _

_He was one step ahead of us. Again. (We're getting really tired of this, have we said?) He went to visit all of Kanna's friends, giving the impression that he was desperate for a hiding place. When we found out he hadn't gotten one anywhere, we were supposed to think he had upped and left. Which we also did. _

_We hate it when criminals are clever. _

_It was a smart plan. He couldn't be any more anonymous. He left a trail that was unmistakably his, but instead of fleeing Venice when he couldn't get what he wanted from Kanna's contacts, he melted into the background of the city and became a simple tourist at a hotel. He could have stayed there for ages while we chased off to Istanbul or Beijing or wherever else. Pity he lost his nerve when he saw us in the breakfast room. _

_Pity for him, not for us. Just wanted to clarify. _

"Oh, good," muttered Sesshoumaru. "For a moment there, I wasn't sure."

_We're writing this while waiting for our own boarding call. We don't have as much authority here as we'd like to, otherwise we would have grabbed a plane and gone immediately. (Well, we could probably have done that before, only they got a bit testy after they turned around a plane for us only to find the hardened criminal we'd promised them wasn't actually there. They take things like flight schedules very seriously.) As it was, we had to wait for two hours. Thankfully there's only a quarter of an hour left, so we're two happy people on our way to catch a crook. _

_Well, we have to down an airport drink or two before we get on that bloody flight so we'll be signing off now. Hope you're all doing well back in the States and hope that whole thing with Koga's fluff gets sorted. We're holding our thumbs over here. Go Koga. _

_By the way... Did she dump you, or you her? I've been wondering about that for a long time. Because if you dumped her, why did you mope about it for a month afterwards? And if she dumped you, wasn't the whole DVD thing a bit too cruel? I mean, talk about adding a massive insult onto injury. – Inu-yasha. _

_OK, it's time for that drink. Bye from Inu-yasha and Kagome!_

Sesshoumaru smiled and sat back in his seat. Well, well. At last, it seemed, they were getting somewhere over there in Europe. Nice to know that the CIA hadn't simply financed a slightly pointless holiday.

And things weren't going too badly for the rest of the YSA, either! They had a phone number to call, a nutty guy in custody and a couple of theories that weren't half bad. Alright, so pretty much all their info had been lifted by the already mentioned nutty person and their suspect was off being chased across Europe, but with a bit of luck they would have a case nice and ready for prosecution when Inu-yasha and Kagome got back with Naraku.

Sesshoumaru sipped his coffee, pretty darned pleased with himself.

…………………………………

...And some distance away, in his apartment, Koga spit his breakfast juice out all over his own e-mail print-out. He reached for his phone, scrolled down to the S section of his address book and dialled the first number.

Sesshoumaru was treated to a five-minute rant about confidentiality, why you shouldn't tell Inu-yasha any kind of gossip, the proper use of the word fluff and all the reasons why Koga did not need to lower his voice at all.

…………………………………

_Aargh, it's snowing. I want spring to arrive, but it just keeps on bloody snowing. Grr. _

_In the next chapter we get to see a Sesshoumaru who is awake early in the morning, a Shippou who is not, and two awkward wolf demons. Sound exciting?_

_It doesn't, does it. Oh well. _

_Until next time! Tally Ho!_


	11. A Fluff With Thorns

A Fluff With Thorns

Shippou was roused from his beauty sleep at seven thirty by Sesshoumaru, who seemed to take great pleasure in shocking his colleagues more and more with his new morning habits.

"Are you _still_ sleeping?" he called into the phone, with that maniacal cheerfulness people who are very much awake reserve for those who have only just got their eyelids unglued. There is a certain amount of sadism in it. "Rise and shine! Today we're going to nab some baddies! Or at least try!"

"I've had worse morning calls," muttered Shippou, stumbling out of his bed and rubbing his eyes fiercely, "but not many. What on earth gives you the right to say "_still_ sleeping" with such incredulity? If someone had told you three weeks ago that you had to get up at seven thirty a.m. you would have looked at them blankly for half a minute and then asked for a translator."

"Ah yes, but that was before my new, healthy lifestyle," Sesshoumaru replied, piously. "Too much sleep is not good for you, either! Do you know, we sleep away a third of our life? Isn't that interesting?"

"So what, you decided you'd already got that third over and done with so now you're going to stay awake until you die?" asked Shippou. He had by now made his way over the wardrobe and was leaning on it, while trying to struggle his way into a pair of jeans. He was not doing very well, since he had to stop every now and then to yawn. "I'm not saying you're not right, mind. At least about the part about already having got your sleeping over and done with."

"Will you stop discussing sleeping philosophies and get ready instead? I want us to be off early today."

"Christ, give me a minute! Or fifteen, preferably. I'm not half dressed yet! Hell, come to think of it I'm not sure I'm even properly awake!"

Sesshoumaru sighed. "OK, OK, take your time. I'm waiting down in the street, in the car. Come down when you're ready."

Shippou breathed out. He yawned, hugely, and was just about to put the phone down when Sesshoumaru spoke again.

"Oh, and by the way... I met Royakan on the way and promised to drop his eldest off at school. Since I didn't want her to be stuck in the car with boring old me I sent her up to keep you company until you're ready. See you soon!"

The doorbell rang.

When Shippou opened the door fifteen seconds later, fully dressed but wild-eyed, he found Sesshoumaru grinning at him.

"Well done," he said. "This just goes to prove that you _can_ get ready in under half a minute, if you just put your back into it. Oh, and never trust anything I say – don't know if I've told you that before. Now let's be off! And please stop stabbing yourself with that fork. I'm sure it's not good for you."

……………………………

Goshinki and Kagura shared a cosy apartment quite close to their restaurant. They had lived there for just under three months, having moved in right after Naraku left the Spider Club and Goshinki got out of prison. Sometime during the first week Kagura had, in a spirit of housewarming, named all their rooms and thus they now had Our Restaurant's Mini-Me (the kitchen), Sea World (the bathroom) and The Room That Speaketh Not Its Name (Goshinki's room, which was a bit of a disaster area).

They had put Kag'n'Juro in The As Of Yet Undecided Room, also known as Junkie since they kept all their junk there. (That's why, Kagura had reasoned, it would be the perfect place to put Kag'n'Juro.) Normal people call rooms like it the broom closet, although of course Kagura and Goshinki didn't know all that many normal people.

Goshinki slept outside The As Of Yet Undecided Room on a camping bed. Kag'n'Juro had attempted to escape once, and had by doing so woken Goshinki up. He had not attempted escape again, since Goshinki was a bit like Inu-yasha if woken up too early – only where the half demon put his energy into coming up with interesting new insults and swear words, Goshinki went straight for the hammering, and didn't stop for a long while.

Right now Kagura was cooking lunch. How she was doing can best be described as this: there was a reason Goshinki did the cooking at their restaurant.

"I am not eating that," said Kageromaru, flatly, as Goshinki led him into Our Restaurant's Mini-Me.

"Starve," said Kagura.

"I was supposed to be alive and healthy at Naraku's trial, or so the little brat in your agency said."

"Yes. He said nothing about well-nourished, however."

"I think you'll find that it comes under the heading of 'healthy', as a matter of fact."

"Have I ever told you how much I hate the expression 'as a matter of fact'?"

"I think Kag'n'Juro has a point, though," said Goshinki calmly. "Kanna will be on us in five seconds if we don't keep him well. And she's pals with that lawyer... you know... the one who comes to the club on Sundays."

Kagura hesitated. "Always orders two Martinis at a time, once sued us because a girl he'd flirted with in our club hadn't reciprocated, and _won_?"

"That's the one."

"Oh. Well then, you cook."

"On my day off?" Goshinki looked at her, mock horrified. "You want to _work_ on my day off?"

"That, or eat my cooking."

"Ouch. Be lazy and get acute food poisoning, or get off my butt and do something. Tough choice."

Kagura scowled. "Hey. I was joking."

"So was I, darling." Goshinki grinned. "I would never choose food poisoning." He switched places with Kagura, donned his apron and got down to work.

"Tsubaki," he said thoughtfully, as he chopped up some carrots with a knife that would have made even Jakotsu feel faint. "Now, what does that name remind me off?"

On the other side of the room, Kagura and Kageromaru started a game of poker. Since Juromaru took over half-way through the game and started chewing on the cards – for lack of meatier alternative – Kagura won without major effort.

……………………………

"My god," said Sesshoumaru suddenly, in the car on the way to their office. "I just realized how we're going to nab Naraku."

"Oh?" said Shippou. (Actually, it sounded more like "auuwooahoough?" since he was still yawning at regular intervals.)

"Yes, so hold on..." And without any further notice Sesshoumaru braked violently, swerved right across the street and went back the other way.

Shippou found his voice again approximately five minutes later. "Did you just morph into your brother?"

"I just decided we needed a change of plans," said Sesshoumaru easily. "And you said you wanted to know more about Koga's fluff, didn't you?"

"I thought he banned you from ever using that word," said Shippou, and then, "What? What does she have to do with anything?"

"Oh, nothing special," said Sesshoumaru. He was wearing his patented mystic expression again. "But I think she might give me some information I need."

When they arrived at the prison holding Ayame they found the same sergeant as last time guarding the door. He looked up as they entered and stared, his expression changing from bored to panicked in a matter of split seconds (largely due to the fact that Sesshoumaru was grinning like a shark).

"To see one miss Ayame?" asked the sergeant, standing aside and hastening to open the door. "Just go right in, I'll call her immediately."

The assisting sergeant – a young woman this time – looked hesitant, and knocked her superior on the shoulder. "But sir – "

"These gentlemen are very welcome," said the sergeant, tightly.

"But – "

"No buts! Just you go ahead." This was to Sesshoumaru, who graciously said his thanks and, beckoning at Shippou to follow, led the way.

"But sir – " said the brave young assistant a third time, and barely flinched as the sergeant swivelled angrily to face her.

"_What_?"

"Didn't she already have a visitor?"

……………………………

"What information?" asked Shippou, walking down the corridor with Sesshoumaru. He was feeling increasingly frustrated about the whole affair.

Sesshoumaru smiled. "You'll see. Maybe."

"Are you ever going to tell me _anything_?"

"Possibly. But don't count on it."

They reached the door to Ayame's interrogation room and entered it, and were very surprised to find it already occupied by two people. Two people who sprang apart, guiltily, as the door opened, and proceeded to blush hotly and identically. Shippou and Sesshoumaru stared.

"Koga!" said the latter finally, finding his bearings again. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"Er," said Koga. "Um."

"Giving support, mainly," said Ayame. She was still blushing, but she was also smiling slightly. She reached out and took Koga's hand again, making him blush yet deeper. "Thank you. It means a lot to me."

"Don'tmentionitanytime," said Koga.

"Alrightie!" Sesshoumaru exclaimed, clapping his hands together and making both wolf demons jump again. "So sweet it makes my teeth rot. Now, since Koga's on _vacation_ – aren't you, Koga? Of course you are. Why else would you be here, when we agreed that would certainly not be involved in this case _at all_. You're on vacation. Nice for you. And since you are, I bet you have a lot to talk to Shippou about – what you've done and everything, I don't know – so you two are going to go grab a coffee and have a chat. Don't mind me, I'll take care of whatever work we who _aren't_ on vacation came here to do. Enjoy your talk."

"But – " said Koga.

"I – " said Shippou.

"What part of 'scram' didn't you understand?" asked Sesshoumaru pleasantly, shooed them out and then turned back to Ayame, smiling broadly.

"How would you like to catch a crook?" he asked.

……………………………

"So…" said Shippou, seated in the waiting room with Koga and drinking a large cup of coffee. (He had liked Sesshoumaru's suggestion quite a lot.) "So, that was Ayame. What is the deal with her anyway? Just a few months ago you were lusting after Kagome and now…"

"How do you know that?" asked Koga, looking shocked. Shippou stared at him.

"My god, you didn't think were _hiding_ it, did you?"

"Shut up," said Koga, master of clever retorts. He sighed, sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, changed his mind and took them down, scratched his nose, looked around himself and sighed again. "I'm not all that comfortable talking about this."

"You don't say," said Shippou, seriously.

"And I don't see how it's any of your business."

"People have been telling me that a lot for these past couple of weeks. But I want you to remember that I'm the reason you know how to copy and paste text in Microsoft Word. I think you owe me one."

"And that gives you the right to shamelessly inquire about my personal life?"

"Well… yes." Shippou grinned. "So you have the choice of either telling me all about it, or being pestered by me till the end of your days and then some. I warn you; I'm a fox demon and we're not known for letting something go easily."

"Alright, alright, fine." Koga sighed yet again, irritably. "I was sort of savouring the possibility of knowing at least one person who wouldn't chortle and look at me funny whenever someone mentions home videos, but if you're going to keep bugging me about it I might as well tell you. Me and Ayame… We had been going out for just over a half year. One night we had been out drinking, and we landed at the Rainbow Café… you know, in the centre of town… they've expanded to "Café and Bar" now. Anyway, Ayame knows the owner, Mark, and he kept the drinks coming on the house to celebrate our seven months. We were both pretty smashed already and we got smashedier…"

Shippou closed his eyes in agony over this assault on the English language, and quickly took some more coffee in an attempt to drown his sorrows. Koga kept talking.

"So the long and the short of it is that – apparently – I… um… proposed to her."

Shippou's coffee went down the wrong way. After spluttering and coughing for about half a minute he found his voice again and asked the question that was begging to be asked, "You bloody well went and did _what_?"

"In hindsight, not a very good idea," Koga admitted. "Of course, I had no memory of it at all. But Ayame takes things like that very seriously, and when I told her I was not about to marry her right then and there and that it had been a very big mistake on my part she got… upset, to say the least. We had a huge fight, which ended with me saying some pretty mean things."

"Define 'pretty mean things'."

"I'm not sure of the exact phrasing, but I believe the general tone was something on the lines of _if you're going to be that way just leave because this certainly doesn't mean that much to me – in fact, the only reason I've put up with your stupid conversation and absolutely ridiculous hairstyle for so long is that I was bored and it was a choice between you and Jakotsu_," said Koga, who was now blushing so hard he could have been used as a stop sign. "And I might have added _so there_, as well."

"In other words, you acted like a complete jerk. I fail to be completely surprised," sighed Shippou.

"I didn't mean it!" Koga exclaimed, which did not surprise Shippou, either. "I thought we could let things cool off and make up again, but… well, as I said, Ayame takes things like that very seriously. She overturned a tea kettle on my head and stormed out of the apartment. When I woke up two days later all her stuff was gone – plus some things that weren't hers. She had hid her key in the carton of milk, so I almost swallowed it when I had breakfast."

Shippou raised his eyebrows. "Alright, I agree that was a bit rich. But still… you were together, you broke up. Not all that strange. Why all this tension about it?"

"Well…" Koga fidgeted. "It wasn't so much the break-up as what happened afterwards. Look, Ayame is not the kind to start moping and rent sad movies when she's upset. She lashes out, and pretty strongly so, too. About two weeks after our falling out, all of the guys in the agency received a DVD on which was recorded me doing a rendition of _New York, New York_ in the showers; me talking in my sleep about how I would never let my enemy have our hold of bananas because I would guard it with my life, and very pointy stick; me crying buckets at the end of E.T.…"

"What?"

"Don't say you didn't think that little alien was the saddest thing you'd ever seen, too!" snapped Koga.

(Shippou kept a tactful silence.)

"Anyway, there was also an added commentary by Ayame detailing just what she thought about my personal habits and disclosing pieces of information from my life such as the fact that she once got me to try on her dress and wear my hair in pigtails and that I still keep my teddy from when I was eight _for sentimental reasons_, nothing else and stop smirking, you dick." It was quite probably not possible for Koga to be any redder. "She also had the DVD played at every café within a half mile's radius, and gave one copy to the owner of every shop I frequented. I endured giggles every time I bought dinner for the following three months. The guy in the deli still says _"E.T. phone hooome"_ as soon as I walk through the door."

"My goodness." Shippou was feeling rather faint. "And still you like her?"

"I hadn't exactly behaved well, either."

"But still. I don't think I've ever seen you demonstrate your ability to blatantly ignore common sense and go your own way as well as now. And I've seen you do that _a lot_. Really, this is almost impressive, or would be if it wasn't so very sad."

"Thank you," said Koga, who felt sure there had been a compliment in there somewhere.

Shippou shook his head again, but then he smiled. "Well, from the look of things before, at least it seems as if you might have another shot at it," he said, patting Koga on the shoulder. "So perhaps it was worth risking the wrath of Sesshoumaru – because if you think he's not enraged about you going against his advice, you haven't learned to distinguish between the "I'm such a nice guy"-smile and the "My god, you are so dead"-smile. I think he's planning on practising the Half Nelson on you."

"I know," Koga winced. "And I know why he didn't want me to come here, too. It makes sense. Really, it does. But… I received an e-mail from Jinenji. He wasn't supposed to tell me, but he'd been talking to Kagura who'd been talking to Goshinki who'd been talking to Sesshoumaru, and so he found out about the whole Ayame situation… he reckoned I deserved to know. They found a partial thumb print in the camera room. It matches Ayame's."

"Oh." Shippou bit his lip, looking sympathetically at his friend. "I'm really sorry to hear that. But still… I mean, Sesshoumaru is a hundred percent certain she didn't do it. I don't know why, but he says he's got undisputable proof. And you know us – we're stubborn as hell. If it's demonly possible, we'll find the evidence to free her. Promise."

"Thanks," said Koga morosely.

"And because I'm such a good friend, I will help you out even though you suddenly have more vacation than I've had since I started working for the YSA," grinned Shippou, in an attempt to lighten up the mood, and then stood up. "Now, I'm going to go see if Sesshoumaru's finished soon." He stopped, looking thoughtful. "You know, I thought I heard him say something that puzzled me a bit, just before we left."

"What?"

"I think I heard him ask Ayame if anything had been taken from N. O. Webber's vault. And that's a bit of a strange question to ask about a vault that was found wide open and empty, isn't it?"

……………………………

"So we're agreed, then?" asked Sesshoumaru, smiling. "You'll help me out and I'll get you freed?"

"Of course," said Ayame with a shrug. "But I must confess myself disappointed. I seem to remember a promise to save me from the reputably very, very scary women's section of the Sunset Gaol no matter what and for no higher reward than my undying love, and now suddenly you're bargaining?"

"I did plan on that," Sesshoumaru nodded. "However, then I saw just how hard Koga could punch and changed my mind about the whole love thing, deciding I'd settle for a different compensation instead." He grinned with her, and then went on more seriously, "And it was also before these new developments. Ayame, really. I thought you were clever. How could you go and leave _finger prints_? Honestly."

Ayame bit her lip. "Oh… you found out about that, then? Koga said he'd only just been told, and wasn't supposed to know anyway…"

"Anything anyone tells anyone else in this agency has to go through me first."

"Really?"

"No. I bugged Koga's phone. Now, about those thumb prints…"

"I _thought_ I'd wiped everything down," Ayame exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air. "Bloody hell, do you think I went and did it on _purpose_ or what?"

"Of course not," said Sesshoumaru soothingly. "But you must admit it makes things a whole lot more difficult for us. I just hope that when we can point at the real culprit, they won't bother so much about the reason why your prints were in a room you supposedly never set foot in."

"Alright." Ayame sighed. "So, back to your little idea… you're sure this will lure him out?"

"I'm sure."

"But he's not the one who robbed the bank, and catching him won't get me off the hook."

"No, but he's the one who ordered the robbery. I'm certain now. And once we've got him, we've got the rest as well. He has a tendency to try and weasel out of sticky situations by dropping others into the dirt."

"Really?" Ayame grinned. "Who says you can't make it in the criminal world if you aren't honest?"

"You can't," said Sesshoumaru with conviction. "But once you _have_ made it, you are allowed privileges such as being a right little creep."

"And still no one's shot him?"

"Tried."

"Well, good luck with him." Ayame laughed. "From the sound of things, you're going to need it. Do you have _any_ kind of evidence against him? What with all the information being stolen and all, I mean. If he's as clever as he seems, you're going to need a bloody strong case to be able to lock him up." She stopped, and put her head to one side. "What are you doing?"

"Making a note to talk to Koga about our secrecy policy," said Sesshoumaru, bent over his almanac (the twin of which Inu-yasha had once put to a rather cruel end).

"While he's on leave?" smiled Ayame. "But seriously, how are you going to nail this guy if you haven't even got enough to keep him in custody right now? You know the police won't agree to detain him on the grounds of being a stuck-up little dick, which is what Koga was suggesting."

"Well, who says we have to get the _police_ to hold him?" Sesshoumaru smiled. "We know people."

"What kind of people?"

"Scary people."

"How scary people?"

"Since you obviously move in somewhat different circles than what was earlier apparent, I assume you know who and what and in what mental condition Kag'n'Juro is?"

"What about him?"

"The people I'm talking about currently keep him as a pet."

Ayame paled. "Ah," she said, eventually. Scary people."

……………………………

_Tally Ho! Some time since I last updated – this is because I'm living in a brutal, uncivilised part of the world. _

_(In other words, I don't have Internet at my current home.)_

_So, in the next chapter it's time for Inu-yasha and Kagome again! Yay! Until then... ;)  
_


	12. Go East

Go East…

"I thought finding Naraku in Prague would be a piece of cake," said Inu-yasha, seated at a café and frowning at the passers-by. "He should stick out like a sore thumb! Aren't Eastern Eurpean people supposed to be all pointy-faced and fair-haired?"

"Your delightfully generalizing comments do have a point, yes," Kagome answered, looking through the menu.

"So why does it look like we never even left Venice?" Inu-yasha asked, pointing an accusing finger at a passing group of dark-haired youngsters, who looked at him in confusion.

"Let me give you a couple of hints," said Kagome. "Note the cameras."

"Noted."

"Note the maps, with SIGHTS TO SEE in bold type at the top."

"Noted."

"Note the lost expressions and the overall impression of sheep."

"Note– they're tourists!" Inu-yasha exclaimed, making the group of youngsters turn around and stare at him.

"You got it. Italian tourists." Kagome frowned. "Strange. I thought the main wave of tourists didn't arrive until spring. Then again, it's probably always tourist season here…"

"Tourist season?" Inu-yasha turned towards her, eyes sparkling. "Does that mean we can shoot them?"

"You're confusing tourists with ducks. Easy mistake to make." She chewed a finger thoughtfully and frowned. "But yes… the question is how the hell we're going to find Naraku. As he has proven, he's pretty good at hiding. Bastard."

"We'll get him sooner or later. And at least he won't be able to get out of the city," said Inu-yasha, showing an unusual amount of optimism. "Every single means of transport is watched now. Good thing we did that job here year before last… I love when people owe me favours. Oh for God's sake, stop doing that to your hands. One of the most unattractive things in the world is bitten-down claws."

"I'm human. They're called nails."

"I meant nails."

"And I thought you loved me regardless."

"Of course. I've said nothing about loving your hands, however. Besides, you've never done that before. What's the matter?"

"I'm nervous, OK?" snapped Kagome, and her hands returned to her mouth. "I want to catch the guy! Can you imagine coming home after weeks of combing through Europe with nothing to show for except a few stamps in our passports and a stupid bullfighting poster?"

"Hey! You said you liked that!" Inu-yasha looked highly affronted for a second, but then he smiled and moved his chair closer to her, taking her hand (which had the double effect of being a very sweet gesture, and getting the hand away from her teeth). "Come on. Don't give up all hope yet. It may look a bit bad right now, but we're going to catch up with him eventually. He's got _us_ chasing him! He doesn't stand a chance!"

"Inu-yasha…" Kagome smiled and leaned forward towards him…

"Shiori!" said Inu-yasha suddenly, sitting bolt upright. Kagome frowned.

"That is not my name. I'm about to kiss you, and you call me by the wrong name. Not a good move."

"No, I mean I have to call Shiori!"

"You're not making it any better. You're aware of this, right?"

"No, listen!" Inu-yasha grinned broadly, taking her other hand as well. "Shiori is this half-demon, bat, and she's here right now! I just remembered! I met her through Toto-Sai – she's part-time professional kendo-player, in the National team and everything, and she's here for a half year's training!"

"And this helps us how?" asked Kagome, who still seemed sulky over having been deprived of a kiss. Inu-yasha grinned.

"I said part-time, right? Well, when she isn't whacking guys with swords, she picks pockets."

"Why on earth would she do that? I didn't realise professional sportsmen were that badly off?"

"It's mostly a hobby. She's always had this thing for shiny stuff, and I suppose she is a bit of a klepto, really. But the point is, this gives her access to the whole network of pickpockets and petty thieves. And they get everywhere. And as if that wasn't enough…" Inu-yasha grinned yet wider. "Shiori also has contacts in the deepest underworld. Her grandfather was one of the largest sharks in that mafia scandal down in New Mexico."

"Was?"

"Yeah, she beat him within an inch of his life and threw him in jail."

"Nice girl."

"Well, he _had_ had her father murdered."

"Ooh. In-laws can be a bitch to handle."

"Oh, no." Inu-yasha looked surprised. "No, he's her paternal grandfather."

Kagome stared at him. "But if he had her father murdered…"

"Yup, it was his own son. He wasn't all that happy about his son marrying a human."

"You're joking." Kagome was still staring. "And I thought my family was messed up."

"Your family? I thought you were pretty normal."

"Oh, yes," said Kagome sarcastically. "Completely normal. One sibling in jail, one technically supposed to be in jail and one earning her living by throwing people like the first two in jail. Pride of our forefathers, we are."

"It's so cute the way you made it sound as if you are the very worst," smiled Inu-yasha. "OK, I'll call Shiori then?"

"First you kiss me," said Kagome, in a voice that brooked no argument.

……………………………

Shiori opened the door, and threw her arms wide for a hug.

"Yasha!" she exclaimed, grinning hugely at him. "I couldn't believe it when you called me! It's been – what? Six bloody months! Who's this?" She suddenly caught sight of Kagome, let go of Inu-yasha and stretched her hand out. "Hi, I'm Shiori."

"Kagome," said Kagome. For some reason, she was scowling. "Inu-yasha's _girlfriend_."

"No! Really?" Shiori laughed, and without warning smothered Kagome in a hug, the enthusiasm of which was no less than the one she had given Inu-yasha. "Then we're practically sisters!"

"What?"

"Can we come in?" asked Inu-yasha quickly, noting that the hug had not improved Kagome's temper. Shiori laughed again.

"Oh, sorry. Come in, come in. Don't mind the carpet; it's supposed to look like that. I'll get us something to drink… Kagome, tea or coffee? Coffee? And tea for you, Inu-yasha…"

Inu-yasha coughed, trying to avoid meeting Kagome's accusing glare. "Coffee for me, too, actually."

"Oh? Switched, have you? Well, go on into the living room… that way… and I'll join you in five."

"Mind telling me what on earth's the matter?" muttered Inu-yasha, as they did what Shiori had asked and seated themselves in the large leather sofa. "Why the sulk? I refuse to believe it's because you found out about my unfortunate past in the bog of tea addiction…"

"Traitor," hissed Kagome, but she smiled a little. "And I'm not sulking. I'm just… caught off guard. You told me we were going to see a young bat demon. You didn't tell me she was this pretty!"

Inu-yasha stared at her, with a certain amount of incredulity. "Don't tell me you're jealous?"

"Me? Jealous? Hah!" Kagome snorted, unconvincingly. "I laugh at the very thought."

Inu-yasha grinned. "Now that I think about it, you have shown certain tendencies towards jealousy before. I mean, back when we first met and I hadn't yet figured out which one of you and your sister was the evil nasty one I should not fall for, you used to do this weird growl every time I mentioned Kikyo."

"That doesn't prove anything. I always growl whenever someone mentions Kikyo. Grrr. Kikyo. See?"

"Sometimes you are a very bad liar."

"Grrr. Kikyo."

"You're not fooling anyone."

Shiori arrived at that moment, putting a stop to the argument. While Kagome sipped her coffee, looking slightly mollified, the others caught up on recent events regarding mutual friends, especially Toto-Sai who appeared to have some kind of mentor for Shiori (which sounded cute and all, until you realized the skill being taught out was how to down a pint in under a minute).

"So," said Inu-yasha at last, noticing that Kagome was starting to yawn, "while we're here, are there any new tricks we should know about? Anything change in the world of pick-pocketing?"

"Nothing new, no," Shiori replied, appearing to think hard about it. "It's very similar to back in the States. The same tricks work everywhere. There's this one kid who does a pretty funny thing, though… he slashes people's backpacks, then holds his arms out and catches whatever falls out. That's how I met him, actually, just when I got here."

"Really? He got you with it?"

"Yeah, and he's _good_. I didn't notice him at all. Only, I'd just been to the library, so instead of a camera and wallet he got an armful of dictionaries!" She laughed, mimicking the pickpocket's shocked expression. "I took him out for coffee, and told him some tricks of my own, and that's how he became my first little friend here. He was the one who started introducing me to some of the other kids, too."

"You keep saying kids."

"Well, most of them are." Shiori shrugged. "Very few are over eighteen. Most of them are thirteen, fourteen maybe." She grinned. "They call me Oma. German for Grandma."

"So, these kids… they any good at watching?"

"What do you want?"

"It's a who," Kagome cut in, glad to join the conversation at last. She got out her notebook and handed Shiori a picture of Naraku. "This guy. Dresses like he's constantly on the red carpet, tends to wear sunglasses, talks well."

"Isn't this Naraku?" Shiori frowned. "Owns the Spider Club? Wait… I think Grandpa was mixed up in that once…" She bit her lip, still frowning. "I'll ask around. Gramps has a lot of contacts here. I don't like to come in touch with that world again, but to catch Naraku… he's one of the worst ones, isn't he?"

"Yes," nodded Kagome. "He always stops short before anything really horrendous – murder or torture or anything like that – but that's what makes him terrifying. Because what he does is not big, and because of that you think you can look over it, until you look closely at him. He does petty crime on such a scale that it becomes huge. He messes up hundreds of lives in small but significant ways." She paused, and shrugged. "That, and he's creepy. Will you help out?"

"Of course." Shiori looked at the photo through narrowed eyes, nodding slowly. Her expression was positively hateful. "He uses _hair gel_, doesn't he?"

"Well… possibly. Uh, why?"

"Horrible thing, hair gel. All sticky and icky. And other words ending on _cky_." She made a disgusted face and rose, going over to the computer and switching on her scanner. "I'll get pictures out to all the kids and tell them to keep an eye out. In the meantime, do you know anyone he might be staying with or something?"

Inu-yasha and Kagome looked at each other, remembering a list of far-fetched but potential contacts for Naraku, which they had spent the spare time at the Venetian airport writing out (in between sending off e-mails and drinking badly mixed Gin'n'Tonics). They also remembered the time walking from door to door in Venice as the most god-awful boring ten days of their life. And finally, they remembered pamphlets about Prague's interesting museums, beautiful architecture and nice jazz clubs.

"No," they said in unison. "Haven't got a clue, really."

…………………………

Tula had twenty-four wallets and eight watches on her conscience – so far that week. It had been a good one. She was lounging with the admirable complacency of those who have their living and eating secured for the time being, and was talking to her best friend and partner in crime, Eetu. They sometimes called themselves cousins, sometimes siblings, but no one had ever found out if either was true or if their close bond was just a result of their shared Finnish origins. They spoke Czech fluently as well as German, passable English and Italian, some French and of course Finnish. They could calculate change in three different currencies with the accuracy of a computer. They knew Prague like their pockets, and could at any given point in the city show you at least two sure-fire escape routes, should the police appear for questioning about vanishing purses and suchlike. They were twelve and thirteen years old.

Tula was situated on top of a wall, dangling her legs and telling Eetu about a certain tourist she had picked clean the day before. Eetu was sitting just below her swinging feet, keeping one ear on her story while looking through three wallets and sorting their contents into what could be kept or sold on, and what could be discarded. When a car drew up next to them, neither reacted. Had it been earlier in the week – when both were low on money – they would have been on their feet in a second, offering guided tours, help to find addresses or whatever else may be needed. Now, however, they saw no reason to interrupt their lazy afternoon with work.

"Hey, kids…" The window on the driver's side wound down, displaying a handsome young man with unruly hair. He spoke German, with a faint accent that placed his origins somewhere in Eastern Europe. "Could you give me a few pointers? I need to get out of town, but not the usual way… if you know what I mean…"

Tula and Eetu looked at him, disinterested. They knew that the police was watching all roads out of Prague with the aim to catch some criminal or other, and they knew just how to get around that. But unless this guy paid well, why bother? Eetu shrugged and turned back to his wallets, and Tula was just about to tell the man to piss off when she noticed something in the back seat of the car that made her start. Jumping down from the wall, she ran up to the car and smiled her cutest smile.

"How much?" she asked, mostly for the sake of the thing. The guy blinked, looking surprised.

"I don't know… two hundred _coronas_?" he hazarded. Eetu snorted, disgusted by the low price, and then looked up in shock as Tula agreed.

"OK. You go down that way, pass the church, then turn into the first street on the left…" She gave the man long and complicated instructions, occasionally stopping to write the name of a street down on a piece of paper for him. After she had received her money and waved him off, she turned to find Eetu grinning at her.

"So _that's_ it," he said. "I was wondering why you let him off so cheap, but I can understand if you don't want to take full price for that set of instructions. He'll end up so lost… you want to tip the police off? He might be that one they're looking for, and maybe they'll give us a reward…"

"Didn't you see?" Tula interrupted, stuffing the money into a pocket and looking through her jacket. "In the backseat was that man, the one Oma told us to look for. Damn! I don't have a single phone on me, how about you?"

"Sorry, not one today." Eetu bit his lip, frowning. "Well, we'll just have to pick one up. You want to do a Cry at the Corner?"

"Sure. You distract, I run."

"Aw, you never let me run!"

"I'm cuter and I cry better. Come on, let's hurry."

Ten minutes later a group of young French tourists were walking down a street on their way to see a certain church. As they approached a corner, a young boy started singing suddenly and loudly, making many of them turn towards him and one or two laugh. In the next moment, they shouted in surprise instead as a girl ran straight into their group from the adjoining street, almost bowling them over. The girl herself fell helplessly, scraping her hands on the pavement as she tried to break her fall.

Two of the young women dropped instantly to their feet next to the girl, but before they had time to assist her she was back on her feet and shoving her way out of the group. She stopped a few feet off and proceeded to shout at them in a mix of several languages, the gist of the shouting being that stupid tourists like them should watch where they were going (only with rather more profanities). Then, just as the youngsters were beginning to grow angry – they had recognized a few words in their own language, none of them nice – she burst into tears and ran off, leaving them filled with a vague feeling of guilt.

It was some time before they put their hands in their pockets and the guilt was replaced by rage, but by then four of their phones were far, far away.

………………………………

"Hello," said Ayame, and then "_What?_ You saw him?" She flew out of her chair and rushed towards the stationary phone where she kept her Yellow Pages, sending her tea cup soaring in the opposite direction. Ignoring the extensive swearing behind her – as the two people in the sofa grasped at one smarting, tea-covered foot each – she stuck her mobile phone between her shoulder and her ear and flipped to the maps section of the Pages. "So where did you… ah. You mean towards the Lafka sisters' patch? Good thinking. Yes, I seriously doubt they will give him good directions, too. Yes, I do remember what they told the guy looking for the Jewish Graveyard. Yes, I agree they were in all probability spawned by the devil himself. Speaking of whom, _when_ did you see Naraku? Oh? Fantastic. Yes, we'll be heading down immediately. Great job, guys. Bye. Hey, Inu-yasha, Kagome…" She turned, to find the carpet now stained with not only tea, but two separate spots of coffee as well. The door to her apartment was already swinging close.

…………………………………

_Tally ho… Spring is in the air. Actually, summer is in the air. It reminds me of just how skewed my estimation for this story was… I was planning to time it so that Christmas happened simultaneously in the fic and in the real world, and now YSA world is almost half a year behind. Damn. _

_Anyway. Hope you're still having fun! I am! ;) _

_Until next time…_


	13. Breakthrough

Breakthrough

Shippou had been on office duty for four days in a row, something that had made him faintly puzzled but which he had accepted as probably being necessary for the great ineffable plan of the office duty rotary. This gentle approach was commendable, but he was dead wrong. The truth was that his repeated hours in the office were due to a most unusual form of setting schedules. Since Koga was now officially on leave, and since he had a hunch of just how pissed off Sesshoumaru was with him, he had not ventured near the YSA office since the day he had been to visit Ayame and had that same night turned over all his responsibilities to Royakan.

Royakan was a wonderful person. He was friendly, open-minded and in any situation quicker to laughter than rage. He loved his children and his wife. He rescued kittens from trees. He helped old ladies cross the street. He was generally the sort of person that would make young girls sigh and say, "That's the kind of man I'm going to marry one day." (And _still_ they fell in love with foulmouthed petty criminals who bought new socks only when the old ones could be used to kill rats or had to be peeled off from their feet with a chisel, whichever came first. Human nature is a wonderful thing.)

One of Royakan's less fine points, however, was a complete lack of seriousness regarding the practical organisation of the agency.

To make the rotary he had made a number of name tags, stuck pins through them, taped the YSA schedule to the wall and introduced a new version of Pin the Tail to his kids. It had gone over rather well, he'd thought, and he had resolved to use the same method for the remainder of Koga's indefinite holiday. Had Shippou been aware of this he would with all certainty not have been feeling quite as peaceful.

Now at last he had a day off from the desk job, and thus it was pretty ironic that Sesshoumaru had picked him up at home only to drive straight towards the office. Not that he minded. Their plans for the day included calling Tsubaki, which they hadn't yet got around to doing, and if he had to interrogate a trained Thief about the whereabouts of information they needed, he'd prefer to do it indoors where his ears didn't threaten to fall off. Because although they were only five days from Christmas and the temperature didn't as much as stick its nose above point zero anymore, Sesshoumaru still insisted on driving around with the roof down. It was a matter of style, he said (stumbling a bit on the last word because his teeth were chattering).

By the time they arrived Shippou was wishing evolution had granted him built-in earmuffs. The relief of stepping indoors was almost, but not quite, enough to distract him from the changes their hallway had gone through since he was last there (some twelve hours previous, when he'd closed up for the night). It was red. It was jolly. It was covered in decorative dolls, most of which were wearing red hats. It had a banner, which hadn't managed to decide whether or not it should follow the new trend of being politically correct and thus read, "HAPPY HOLIDAYS, NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH SAYING MERRY CHRISTMAS, EITHER, IT'S THE GENERAL TONE THAT MATTERS ISN'T IT?" and in smaller type below, "Besides, everyone loves getting presents."

Sesshoumaru and Shippou stared at the walls in dumb disbelief. They contemplated turning around immediately, had a shared memory of the temperature in the car and went on, bravely. At the last moment they noticed the mistletoe above the door and were very careful to enter at a safe distance from each other.

The actual office was no better. There were Santa Clauses and accompanying helpers everywhere, silhouettes of reindeers galloped on all four walls and the CD player no one had previously known existed was playing Absolute Christmas at full volume.

Goshinki was replacing the dartboard with a Santa doll that had numbers in black painted onto different body parts (the head was worth nine points and Shippou reflected that a guy had to be _really_ callous to even contemplate aiming for the bullseye) and Royakan was seated at the desk, apparently playing cards with Kagura and Kag'n'Juro. Even the playing cards had a holiday theme.

"Who's responsible for this?" asked Sesshoumaru in quiet horror, and then repeated the question a bit louder, so as to be heard over the chorus of Hosanna in Excelsis. All four looked up at him, and three grinned. (Kag'n'Juro, currently occupied by Juromaru, hissed angrily at him. Sesshoumaru did not take it personally; especially since Juromaru next turned to the table, and hissed at that, too.)

"You have to get into the spirit of the thing," smiled Kagura. "Granted, we may have been a little over-enthusiastic, but Juromaru was so excited about pinning up the reindeers we didn't have the heart to stop him at twelve. From there it sort of escalated."

"That does explain why half of them are missing their heads," mumbled Shippou, who had been puzzled over this phenomena. "And legs, too, I notice. Oh, and that one is a very interesting study in anatomy, but I seriously doubt a real reindeer would be able to do that."

Juromaru hissed again, and leapt for his leg. Without turning her head, Kagura caught the back of his shirt, yanked him back in mid-jump and slammed a foot down on his chest.

"He's been Juromaru almost all day," she said conversationally, while the subject of conversation snarled and spat, lying flat on the floor. He did not try to break the relatively light hold she had on him, however, because even Juromaru knew that when you have a stiletto heel on your chest, the best thing to do is to behave nicely and pray very hard the wearer of the heels does not decide to stand up. "We think it may have something to do with the weather."

"You seem to have him under control though," Sesshoumaru commented, prodding Juromaru cautiously with a foot. "I'm impressed."

Kag'n'Juro blinked once and then snorted, pushing Kagura's shoe away and sitting up. His eyes had changed slightly, signalling the return of a personality that could actually form sentences. "Of course she bloody well has me under control when she's wearing those shoes," said Kagoromaru, testily. "I don't know many people who enjoy being trod on with force of an elephant, concentrated to a square centimetre."

"You don't know many people at all, Kageromaru," said Goshinki calmly, threw a dart and hit the bullseye. The other four males in the room winced. "Because you're bonkers. No offence."

"So how has it been working out, having him live with you?" asked Sesshoumaru curiously. "I see you are all still in one piece, at least."

Kagura smiled brightly, and clapped Kageromaru on the shoulder. "You know what?" she said. "He's actually kind of starting to grow on me. Alright," she raised a finger, "he's a maniac," she raised a second finger, "and has the world's most annoying laughter," she raised a third, "and can't even make scrambled eggs without ruing the frying pan…" She trailed off and frowned, mouthing to herself silently as she raised the rest of her fingers one by one, gazed at her feet for a while and finally looked at the person in question. "Now that I think about it, why _do_ I like you?"

"I lose at poker," said Kageromaru, sulkily.

"Oh yes." Kagura smiled again. "See? If you have a big enough heart, you'll find that there's always _something_ to like about a person."

"It's not the greatness of your heart that's a factor in this matter," Goshinki shot in. "It's the smallness of your wallet. That being said, I _love_ the way he can lose on triple aces."

"So you don't mind having to hold him for a few more days, then? Or… weeks, probably?"

"No closer to the end, huh?"

"Well," said Shippou, "we are going to try and get hold of Tsubaki today. If we can manage to keep her on the phone for a while we may be able to get at least an approximate location of where she is, and then we'll be just a little bit closer to getting all our info back and building a case that'll hold." He had ducked into the other room when Juromaru jumped at him and had found it mercifully void of decorations, and also the sight of the computers had sparked an idea. "I'll be back in a second, Sessh. I have to get a few wires… I'll just nip down to the cellar. See you in a bit."

"See you." Kagura waved, and then turned to her brother. "Weren't you mumbling about a Tsubaki just a few days ago?"

"Hm?" Goshinki hit the bullseye _again_, and turned around. "Oh, yes. I knew I'd heard the name in connection with the Spider Club, but I just remembered who it was. Couldn't possibly be this girl who's been running around stealing things – it was an old hag Naraku hired for a hypnosis or something… So I guess it was just coincidence." He shrugged, aimed at the Santa and then suddenly sighed, making a half-hearted throw and hitting one of the Santa's hands. Sesshoumaru and Royakan both breathed out. (Kag'n'Juro, who seemed to have reverted back to Juromaru, was chewing his way through an old folder and did not even glance that way.)

"Sessh," said Goshinki, "you and Shippou are going to be around for some time now, right? Only, I'd like to be off. I'm not supposed to be here today anyway. I just jumped in for Ginta and Hakkaku."

"Again?" Sesshoumaru frowned. "That's the second time, isn't it?"

"Fourth."

"_Fourth?_ Where are they running off to all the time? Oh, wait a minute…" Sesshoumaru's expression went from puzzlement to comprehension as he remembered something. "Didn't the new Matrix game come out only a few weeks ago?"

"A pattern emerges," said Kagura, and revealed pairs of knights and ladies. Royakan cursed mildly and paid up.

"Off with you, Goshinki." Sesshoumaru smiled at his colleague. "I don't have the energy to chase around town today and neither does Shippou, so we can hold the fort here. Are you going, too, Kagura?"

"Not until I've milked Royakan dry," mumbled Kagura, concentrating on her cards.

Shippou passed Goshinki in the door and said goodbye, then busied himself in the computer room for half an hour. Sesshoumaru passed the time between alternately sorting paperwork and watching Kagura fleece Royakan. The latter was considered a much more giving pastime, seeing as it taught him the valuable lesson of never playing poker with either of them (Royakan was rather good and Kagura was ruthless).

"All done," said Shippou eventually, standing back and admiring his handiwork. He had made a makeshift connection between the computer and their phone, one that would hopefully help them work out what mast her cell phone was broadcasting from. "It's crude, but it might just do the trick. You want to make the call, Sesshoumaru?"

"Actually…" Sesshoumaru looked at Kag'n'Juro, calculating. "We need her to stay on the phone for as long as possible, right? If we call her she'll probably hang up as soon as we tell her who we are. But if someone who knows her makes the call…"

Shippou, Royakan and Kagura all turned towards Kag'n'Juro as well. Juromaru looked up, blinked and changed into Kageromaru.

"Fine. But you'll have to supply me with what to say."

Sesshoumaru raised his eyebrows. "Whoa. You're being awfully cooperative today."

"Certain footwear does wonders for my agreeability."

……………………………

Tsubaki heard her cell phone beep, and swore. Right in the middle of lunch… people just couldn't leave her alone! Swallowing down the last of her sandwich, she grabbed the phone and answered irritably.

"Yes, who the hell is it?"

"Hi. It's Kageromaru."

"Oh. Hi. What is it? New job for us, or what? And where are you calling from?" She didn't recognize the number, and working with Naraku had taught her to be suspicious.

There was a pause, and it sounded as if someone was scribbling on a piece of paper. Then Kageromaru spoke again. "I'm staying with a friend from the Spider Club."

"You? Staying with a _friend_?" Tsubaki snorted."Does your friend have suicidal tendencies?"

Again the pause. "Fine. I lied. I've broken into the house of an old Spider Club a… associate? Is that how you say it?"

Tsubaki stared at the phone. She had rarely heard Kageromaru speak in words of more than three syllables before. (As for Juromaru, he never made to even one.) She was about to ask him if he was sick – well, sicker than usual – when someone called out to her from outside her dwelling.

"Are you done yet? The line's huge already!"

Cursing quietly, Tsubaki said "hang on" to Kageromaru and arranged her voice into the raspy vocals used for her other life. "In a minute, dear!" she shouted. "Just finishing lunch."

"I'll go and practise in front of them for a while then. Keep them happy."

"Thank you, dear!" Coughing once or twice, she returned to her conversation with Kageromaru. "So, what are you calling about? Another job for Naraku? You heard anything from him lately?"

Pause. "No. He's still out loose somewhere in Europe, the smarmy little snot, although of course he belongs in a bloody dung… dungeon." There was a dull thump in the background, as if someone had been smacked over the head. Tsubaki frowned. Alright that Kageromaru was weird and all, but she had never heard him speak about Naraku like that before. And that thump…

"What's the matter with you today?" she asked. "Are you Juro or what?"

"No," said Kageromaru, sounding affronted. (Anyone would be affronted by being mistaken for Juromaru, of course.) "By the way, what's a dungeon?"

"A dungeon is a… wait a minute." A suspicion had begun to form in her mind. She held her breath, listening intently. There was the sound of Kag'n'Juro's as always slightly out-of-sync breathing… in the background, was that the scrape of a chair? …and a small cough, that did not come from Kag'n'Juro.

There was more than one person on the other end of the line.

Well, of course there was, she was talking to Kag'n'Juro. But there was also someone other than him (er, them) in the room.

"Fuck you," she spat viciously, and hung up.

Curse the little idiot! Had he let himself be caught? She'd never told Kag'n'Juro where she lived, but what if they traced her back to her other self? They had to be pretty damn powerful, to get Kag'n'Juro to do what they wanted. Shit! Why hadn't she realized it earlier?

Because she was in such a foul mood, she predicted drowning, starvation and the wrong Christmas gifts for the first four people to see her.

……………………………

"Next time we do this," said Shippou, "_I_ write the prompts."

"Oh, so now it's my fault, is it?" asked Sesshoumaru, and scowled when the other four – even Juromaru, who had returned as soon as the phone call was taken care of – nodded. "She could just have well have caught on from when you hit me."

"Can I remind you that the one you were supposed to be telling what to say is a demon who doesn't know how to string two words together half of the time?" asked Shippou, pointing at Juromaru and then quickly pulling his finger back as Juromaru snapped at it. "You should have kept it simple!"

"How was I supposed to know he can't even pronounce associate?"

"The way you spell it, _anyone_ would be hard put to pronounce associate."

"Oh well," sighed Sesshoumaru, magnificently ignoring the last comment, "what's done is done. We kept her on the line for a while, at least. Do you think you can get something out of it? By the way, you can stop scowling now. It was just as much your fault, so there."

"No, it's okay…" Shippou kept frowning, biting his lip. "I'm just trying to remember… that voice in the background? It reminded me of someone…"

"Really? Well, you know what?" Sesshoumaru adopted the same thoughtful expression. "I recognised something, too – her voice, when she went all raspy and hoarse… I don't know, something about it…"

They were interrupted in their reflections by the sound of a loud crash, coming from the hallway. It was followed by diverse sounds of explosive fighting. Juromaru looked up happily and eagerly, because crashes and smashes were to Juromaru what Vivaldi is to a classical violinist, but the other inhabitants of the room hardly heeded the noise once they had recognized it for what it was: Ginta and Hakkaku entering the agency. Kagura was the only one who showed any kind of reaction – a gentle but heartfelt sigh, which on the other hand might have had more to do with Royakan's straight flush than the demolition of their Christmas decorations.

Sesshoumaru opened the door, stuck out a hand and grabbed Ginta by the back of his shirt. "Could you stop doing that for one minute?" he said. He was already irritated at them for skivving off their office duties, and having them practising acrobatics in the YSA offices was not aiding his temper. (However, he did note with a certain amount of satisfaction that most of the Christmas dolls had managed to be torn down.) "Why the hell do you have to beat each other up all the time for?"

Ginta looked at him with a very dignified expression, which was particularly impressive since he had managed to summon it up while hanging more or less in midair. "The Oracle has many enemies," he said. "I had to be sure."

"Of what?" asked Kagura, looking mildly interested. Ginta turned towards her.

"That he was the One."

Kagura raised an eyebrow. "You could've just asked," she suggested.

"You do not truly know someone until you fight them," said Ginta, then blinked. "Hey! That was word perfect! How many times have you seen the second movie?"

"Second movie of what?" asked Kagura who had, although noticing that the two wolf demons were the ultimate in nerdiness, not as of yet understood exactly what the object of their nerdism was. Ginta and Hakkaku looked at her in stupefied adoration.

"She's a natural," whispered the latter finally in a reverential tone. "Kagura, what are you doing over New Year's?"

"How would you like to be in a movie?" asked Ginta, catching on.

"Ever acted before?"

"Do you prefer to be good guy or bad guy?"

"Could you share a loge?"

"Will you allow us to turn you into a star?"

"In short, the blue pill or the red pill?"

"Leave her alone," snapped Sesshoumaru, seeing that Kagura was looking rather overwhelmed. "And do your scouting on your own time. Speaking of which, where have you been during your four last office duty days? I swear, if there is any mention of The Matrix in your answer I will tie you both to a chair and force you to watch Legally Blonde until Keanu Reeves is replaced by Reese Witherspoon on the altar of Perpetual Adoration you have in your living room."

"Inventive," muttered Shippou, who had always admired Sesshoumaru's ability for coming up with new, exciting threats.

Ginta and Hakkaku looked at him, guilt written across their faces. Then, suddenly, the guilt gave way for triumph and they both shrugged their backpacks off their shoulders, opened them and drew out one plastic bag each. First now Shippou noticed that they were wearing their old gymnastics clothes, plus tool belts – their burglary kit.

"There you go," said Ginta, with a bit of a smirk. "That's for Horace Scumblebum, hope it'll help."

"Horace _who_?" asked Sesshoumaru, accepting Ginta's bag with an incredulous expression. Shippou, however, leapt up and took Hakkaku's bag, emptied it onto the desk and started leafing through the papers enthusiastically.

"Horace Scumblebum," he said, "don't you remember? The one accused of illegal deals with the weapons industry?"

"Poor dear," said Kagura, with an unusual display of softhearted-ness. "If I had a name like that I'd probably turn to criminality myself."

"But we put that case on hiatus four months ago!" Shippou exclaimed, not caring why or when Scumblebum had become a crook. "We couldn't get enough evidence… I thought you said his joint was impossible, Ginta!"

Ginta grinned. "Yeah, but that was then! Now we've upgraded ourselves!"

"You're looking at Ginta and Hakkaku – reloaded," said Hakkaku.

"Yeah, that's so cool!"

"We did an advanced TUTU course, by the way."

"A tutu course?" Royakan looked shocked for a second, but then pleased. "You mean like The Swan Lake? That would be nice, I haven't seen that since... well, forever. When are you performing?"

"It's T.U.T.U." Hakkaku's tone suggested that he'd had to explain this before, and to people who hadn't been anywhere near as open-minded about it. "As in the Thieves' Unofficial Trade Union."

"Strictly speaking, it's forbidden for us to take the class," Ginta filled in, "since we're not part of the union and haven't done either the Theft Education or Basic Burglary course, but Sota got us a place by assuring that we had lots of work experience."

"And by talking to the right people," Hakkaku grinned. "He knows about a few skeletons in other people's closets – "

" – having helped dispose of the bodies – "

" – so with the help of a few well-placed reminders of this he was able to secure a place for us. Cool huh?"

"Very cool," mumbled Shippou, engrossed in the paperwork. He had spent months on Scumblebum, trying to break into his computer, but had been beaten back every time. The man had a firewall on his files that withstood even Shippou's heaviest artillery.

Needless to say, Shippou had been very upset by the thought of being beaten in his own forte – illegal cyber warfare – by an old dude with a stupid name. What might have made him feel better, had he known it, was that this very efficient protection was rather all down to Scumblebum's eighteen-year-old nephew.

"Sesshoumaru, this contains all we need to reopen the case," he said, flipping forward to check the bookkeeping for July, a time when he had put a huge amount of time into the investigation. "We can call up those people we know at Guns Unlimited... Genjyo and Kirika and maybe that guy, what's-his-name... Yuki, I think... hey!" He looked up angrily; Sesshoumaru had pulled the bookkeeping report out of his hands.

"Not now," he said. "We have Naraku to take care of. Remember him? Tall, creepy guy with good hair? We are going to concentrate on him for now. So you have to track down this Tsubaki before we do anything else."

"But Scumblebum will know that we're onto him now!" Shippou pleaded, not willing to let go of this new possibility to nab him. "We have to act before he can get away! I mean, if Ginta and Hakkaku have lifted all this stuff..."

"We just printed it out from his computer," said Hakkaku.

"Is there some way to tell that?" asked Ginta.

"No, not unless you look for it... wait, you did what?" Shippou stared at the wolf demons. "His computer is bloody well impossible to crack! How did you get at this?"

"Used the password," said Ginta, matter-of-factly.

"How did you guess that, then?"

"Well..." Ginta shrugged. "We tried the one that stood on the post-it stuck to the computer."

"And that worked," said Hakkaku. "Bit of a lucky break, huh?"

Shippou gaped for several seconds, then threw his hands up in a defeated gesture. "I give up on people sometimes," he snorted. "I worked on this guy for hours on end, and then you come and gain access to his computer with the help of a post-it. I mean, really. Is that fair in any kind of way? Life is a bitch – a rabid one with bad fur and fleas."

"Sort of like a female Sesshoum– ouch." Royakan looked reproachfully at Sesshoumaru, who ignored him and instead looked pointedly at Shippou.

"Tsubaki. Now," he said.

"Fine, fine." Shippou threw one last, mean look at the paperwork on the desk and disappeared into his inner sanctum (the computer room). They could hear him first taking his frustrations out on the computer by punching the keys unnecessarily hard, and then (Sesshoumaru tried to ignore this, since it ruined his belief that Shippou was – alone among the YSA members – one hundred percent normal) asking its forgiveness for his brutal behaviour.

"You've been working on this for some time, then?" asked Sesshoumaru, turning back towards Ginta and Hakkaku. They had planted themselves next to one poker player each and were following the game, now conducted above and around large mounds of paper, with great interest. Both looked up when Sesshoumaru spoke, quickly and guiltily.

"Some time. Yes," said Ginta.

"Lots and lots of stake-out hours," Hakkaku agreed.

"Checking the place over – "

" – finding out guard schedules – "

" – working out ideal hours for getting in – "

" – making lists of all the people usually moving in or around the house – "

" – yeah, it took time."

"Good thing Goshinki could help you out with taking some of your hours here, then," said Sesshoumaru, sweetly.

"Oh yeah, really – "

"Especially since you seem to have done all your scouting during office times. Funny, that."

"Yeah... funny..."

"So how's the new Matrix game?"

"Fantastic," chorused the cousins, then blinked, cursed and hit each other.

Sesshoumaru sighed. "One of these days," he began, but was interrupted when Shippou opened the door and stuck his head out.

"Sesshoumaru. You may want to take a look at this."

………………………………

"So what is this?" asked Sesshoumaru, once he had menaced the two wolf demons some more and joined Shippou.

"It is," said Shippou, clattering on the keys of the computer with a speed that made the older demon worry about the sound barrier, "a map."

"Oh, really."

"Shut up. These red markers," Shippou pointed to one of the red dots strewn generously across the map, "are masts for receiving and sending out telephone signals. I haven't managed to pinpoint Tsubaki's location, but her phone could have sent from either of these three masts. Each mast has a coverage area about the size of two or three square kilometres, so in other words she had to be somewhere in this area at the time of the call." He marked out a square of considerable size on the map and looked up at Sesshoumaru, who sighed deeply.

"Great. Just great. I hope you're not suggesting that this is a lead worth following up on? OK that she's the one who has all the info we need to build a case against him, but Naraku will have had time to create a whole new criminal empire in Beijing by the time we shake her down."

"Of course we can't look through it manually. I mean, it's a cell phone anyway so she could just have been passing through that area. However," Shippou's eyes sparkled in the way they always did when he'd done something clever with computers, "I ran a cross-reference check on all the Naraku material we still had, just to see if anything interesting came up. And I found something. I have all the addresses relevant to the case in one special file, and that's where I noticed this..." He pointed to a spot on the map – a park, in the central part of the marked area.

"So? What has that – " Sesshoumaru paused, and looked closer. "Wait, isn't that where..."

"... the circus is." Shippou grinned. "I believe the term you're looking for is 'Bingo'."

Sesshoumaru looked at the map for a few more moments and then he, too, began to grin. Opening the door out to the regular office room, he snapped his fingers to get the attention of his colleagues and addressed Ginta and Hakkaku.

"Hey guys," he said, "as long as you're still wearing those cute outfits, how would you feel about doing another job before you call it a day?"

………………………………

_Once again I've taken a lot of time to update. You know by now that I'm deeply sorry. ;)_

_I finally moved today. All spring I've been paying rent for a flat I stay in approximately two days per month, and I just decided that this was not economic. So I've been spending the better part of the day trying to fit all my stuff into two suitcases and a couple of boxes. I was more or less successful – although I had to sit on the suitcases to close them – but now I'm really tired. _

_Moving is exhausting. _

_References: The names for the guys at Guns Unlimited are taken from three different manga or anime characters who use guns – Genjyo Sanzo from Saiyuki, Kirika from Noir and Eiri Yuki from Gravitation. I like something about each of them, even though they're really weird. _


	14. The Wolf in Cute Clothing

The Wolf in Cute Clothing

Ayame had left university after four years' studies knowing two things: one, that she had a kick-ass talent for all things electrical and two, that a life of one hundred percent legality would never suit her. At first she thought the Midnight Bank, with its rather shaky hold on the Law, would satisfy that need, but she soon realised that this wasn't enough.

It was when she ran into an old friend from high school who was dealing – somewhat shadily – in fine arts, that she came up with the plan to make money, have fun and put her diverse skills to the test, all in one.

She had, while still at university, made the acquaintance of a guy who had shown a certain aptitude for forgery. (He had, to pick an example at random, made a small fortune by selling diplomas with the appropriate teacher's signature to those who had failed their courses.) He had also spent a brief spell in prison for the attempt to sell a forged painting. He had there learnt several must-knows about breaking and entering from his cell mate – information he gladly forwarded to Ayame. So with him and her artsy friend she had the basis of what would start out as a way to relieve her of her boredom, but would eventually grow into one of the most elaborate art theft schemes to ever grace America.

Her position at the bank was an excellent one for finding out what her customers' vaults contained. Many never even gave a thought to the silent and discreet girl who escorted them to their room and informed of any changes in the system or password combinations that had been renewed since the last visit. She was often allowed to remain in the room while her customers added or subtracted to their treasure hold, and she thus managed to write out a very good inventory of all the _objets d'art_ within her reach.

With the help of her friend in the art business she determined what paintings or sculptures would fetch a good price, and who was likely to be interested in them after they had been liberated from their owners; with the help of her friend in the forgery business she replaced the objects she removed from her customers' vaults with perfect replicas while she sold the originals; and with the help of no one but herself she entered the bank after closing hours, opened vaults and switched valuable items with worthless forgeries, manipulated security cameras and alarms to give no sign of her ever having been there and generally did all the dirty work. She found it to be exactly the kind of kick she had been searching for since high school.

Her conscience could of course be eased by the fact that very few of the Midnight Bank's customers had achieved the objects filling their vaults by honest means, but then again this didn't really matter since she had never had much to spare for that whole conscience thing anyway.

At first, she limited herself to swiping stuff from the customers in her charge, but as the business proved to be more successful than she had expected – and as this was found to be almost too easy – she started investigating into those of her colleagues as well. The Midnight Bank was, naturally, not the most trusting of work places, but even _their _employees wanted days off when they were supposed to be working and Ayame soon became known as the one who was willing to jump in at short notice. Grandma's in hospital? Talk to Ayame, she can probably take your shift. A sudden date? No problem, call Ayame and she'll cover for you tonight. Just really, really tired of work? Dump it on Ayame, she seems to like it.

She was trusted with confidential information, secret passwords and other assorted stuff that would be _really _bad in the hands of the wrong person. Why? Because "the wrong person" – well, that couldn't possibly be little pigtailed Ayame, who was cute and innocent-looking and most importantly always ready to shoulder other people's burdens. "The wrong person", that was another type of person entirely.

Or maybe not.

She had been at it for a little over three years when she met Koga. She had seen enough of the business to know that it was often cold and brutal, and although it pained her to admit it, she was starting to think it might be time to quit. This decision was spurred on by something that had quite surprised her, used as she was to short relationships without any kind of real emotion attached.

But she liked Koga. She really, really liked him. And although she knew she'd have to ditch him sooner or later, when he got to thinking about the things about her that didn't add up – you'd think that'd happen sooner, what with the Secret Agency job and all, but Koga had proved once and for all that love is severely nearsighted – she didn't want to. She didn't want to at all, actually. If the choice stood between Koga and continuing her (ahem) career, she gradually came to realise, it would be the former who won hands down.

His offer of marriage – although unexpected – was all the excuse she needed.

That very same night she called up the three art-loving billionaires with whom deals were at that time just being negotiated, and in no uncertain terms told them what she thought of them, their hobbies and their sense of moral. (Needless to say, her honest but colourful words were not well received.) She talked to both of her closest accomplices to let them know she was out for good, and carefully hung up on them before they had time to start voicing objections. And after thus successfully ruining several people's breakfast, she set about preparing hers and Koga's.

Half an hour later the greater part of that breakfast was to be found in Koga's hair (having it poured over one's head does that).

Koga had never reflected very much over the reason for their very violent break-up. He knew her temper and fierce pride, and blamed the quarrel that morning – and their mutual inability to admit a wrong – for their falling out. Seen from Ayame's perspective, however, her rage when she found out he had not been serious in his offer made more sense. She had more or less burned her bridges, her financial situation was not all that, and she had just made herself a few enemies in the _crème de la crème_ of the criminal world.

Put less eloquently, she was in the shit.

Since she left Koga she had been working hard to build her good reputation back up. And one opportunity to do this, one she couldn't afford to pass up, was a highly secretive and well-paying deal – to ensure _The Half-breed_, a painting that had been stolen some years previous from a museum in Tokyo, for a private collector. She had found that the painting was indeed within her reach, in the vault of one of her oldest customers. Without further ado she had commissioned her friend the forger to make a copy, and the next time she had the late shift she fed a loop to the cameras to make them show nothing but empty corridors all night, switched the paintings and went home with the satisfaction of a bad job well done.

And left the field open for Tsubaki and her friends.

…………………………………

"This is all very interesting," said Shippou, with a sigh of impatience that belied his words, "but I don't see what it has to do with my question."

Sesshoumaru raised his eyebrows. "You have repeatedly asked me to tell you about Ayame. I find you lacking in gratitude."

Shippou grit his teeth, but spoke calmly. "That is true," he said. "Time after time have I asked to be told what I feel is only my due as a valuable member of the agency. Time after time have I had naught but a hello-I-am-an-enigma smile in return. Believe me, this story is long awaited. _However_," he glowered, "as a reply to my question _"Just how are you planning to trap Naraku?"_, the life story of Ayame is rather insufficient, don't you think?"

"Ah, but that's where you are wrong," said Sesshoumaru seriously. "Because Ayame's life story is closely tied to my clever, not to say genial, plan. I mean, really, it's brilliant."

"Does that ego of yours come with a pump or do you have to inflate it by hand?"

Derogatory remarks, especially from Shippou, always slid off Sesshoumaru like water off a duck. He continued, unfazed. "When Tsubaki and her friends broke into Webber's vault, what they didn't know was that one of the paintings they retrieved was a fake. To be exact, _The Half-blood_."

"Wait, that was..."

"The painting Ayame had lifted that very night, yes. But let's not focus on that for the time being. Instead, consider this: did you ever wonder why the intruders into the Midnight Bank took such great care to advertise that they had been there? If they were able to get past the alarms and into the vault, why not just close it afterwards and leave quietly? It could have been days or weeks or months before Webber returned and the theft was discovered."

"I did wonder," Shippou admitted. "Especially while Ayame was number one on my list of suspects. And then I thought about insurance scams. Webber was the one that ordered the break-in, since he knew the bank would compensate him in black money, and he wouldn't have to make any formal complaints or prosecute. He needn't even have had anything to be stolen in the first place, although the bank would probably have known if that was the case."

"Exactly." Sesshoumaru smiled, glad that he wouldn't have to explain his thought processes every step of the way (as the case would be with, for example, Royakan – who never bothered to think if he could get someone else to do it for him). "He did have lots of nice shiny stuff in his treasure chest – take it from Ayame. And after removing it from his bank, he was likely to sell some of it off, right? That way he could increase the profit he'd already made, and also get the artworks into circulation in order to "prove" that they really had been stolen. So imagine this scenario: doubt suddenly rises about the authenticity of one of his paintings. One of the collectors he approaches seems to have already bought _The Half-breed_, and is absolutely adamant that it's genuine. Webber is furious! If word gets around, the entire collection will be viewed with scepticism – his reputation is at stake! He demands to be allowed to see and compare the alleged _Half-breed_ original with his own, and proposes a meeting with several experts present. If his copy turns out to be the fake he will retreat – probably to hunt down the bastard who robbed him of his rightful, sorry, wrongful property – and if it turns out to be the real thing he will gracefully allow the collector to buy it off him. You're getting that bored look again."

"Webber isn't my main priority right now."

"You may not think so, but..." Sesshoumaru grinned. "Think about it. What do we know about this Webber? He needs money, fast. Maybe he's on the run from something – that would be a reason to start selling off his accumulated treasures. He employs professionals like Tsubaki. He has a lot of power. Are you seeing connections yet?"

"You mean..." said Shippou slowly.

"I mean," sighed Sesshoumaru, "that Naraku has a serious lack of imagination while choosing his aliases. Seriously, Webber? _Web_-er? And with N. O. for Naraku Onigumo? Pisses me off!"

"So..." Shippou was starting to smile, "I take it Ayame has set this whole thing up for you?"

"Of course. The entire meeting is a sham. The collector who purchased _The Half-breed_ from Ayame had been looking for a chance to squash Naraku for years, and co-operated readily. Her friend the art dealer will be one of the experts present to give it a nice genuine feeling, but the other "experts" – they're up to us to find." He winked. "When Naraku strolls into the meeting, guess who he'll find."

"He won't be happy." Shippou grinned, hugely. "Which is not more than fair since I will be happy enough for both of us. It's finally happening, isn't it?"

"Uh-huh." Sesshoumaru was grinning, too.

"So when is this meeting?"

Sesshoumaru's grin widened almost imperceptibly. "Oh, I didn't say? Tonight. And, since _you_ are going to be playing one of the experts, I suggest you hurry off now and buy yourself some clothes proper for the occasion."

He felt a certain amount of sadistic satisfaction at Shippou's suddenly panicked expression. Then, since he was in fact a rather kind person, he handed his colleague a card with the address of a gentleman's clothing store. "I recommend you to try this place. You'll probably get a discount, as well as kind advice and help with whatever you need – since Royakan's eldest is a part-timer there."

Shippou was a disappearing blur.


	15. Twas the Night Before Christmas

'Twas the Night Before Christmas…

'_Twas the night before Christmas and something evil was stirring in the far-off country of the Czech Republic. _

_Also, a lot of people were having a _really_ bad day._

………………………

"What the hell is this?" The officer on duty stormed into the coffee room, thrusting a cell phone out accusingly. "Can anyone tell me what this is?"

"A Samsung," said the sergeant closest to the door, after a brief examination.

"Z150," elaborated the constable on his right, and held out a platter. "Cookie? Jan baked, they're delicious."

"This is no time for cookies!" the officer snapped, red-faced with righteous anger, and waggled the phone for emphasis. "This cell phone was just found in the possession of Ayame, wolf demon, prime suspect in the Busted case – which, by the way, has a really stupid name. Can anyone tell me what is the matter with this? Hm? You!" he snapped at a young trainee copper who was there for his first day of work experience, and who jumped a foot into the air. "Recite paragraph 28:4 of the rule book for holding suspects in custody."

"Paragraph 28:4 states that suspects in custody are not to be allowed any contact with the outer world, such as cell phones, laptops or morse code signalling apparatus," quivered the trainee, shrinking back into his chair and trying to look insignificant.

"Correct." The officer looked around the table, and settled on a tea-drinking constable as his next victim. "And the second clause of this says...?"

"The second clause of this says," replied the constable smartly, "that any policeman found breaking this rule and/or aiding or abetting in breaking this rule will be stripped of all possible privileges at the setting of duty rosters for anything from a fortnight up to two months as the maximum sentence, and will also be excluded from the cookie platter."

"Correct. I like to see my subordinates know their legal theory." He let them breathe for a moment, and then turned the wrath up back to full strength. "And I like it even better when they _use_ it in _practise_! Why, I want to know _why_, has this Ayame been allowed a cell phone? _How_ did she even get it? Why hasn't _anything_ been done to _confiscate_ it," he paused, mentally counted up how many words he'd already emphasised and decided that one more couldn't hurt, "at first possible _sight_?"

"Begging you pardon," said one sergeant, raising a hand cautiously. The officer wheeled on her. "The one who brought it was her lawyer... or something like it... you know – tall, handsome chap with a lot of hair. He also said, if you had any objections..." She put her coffee cup down, rummaged around in various pockets and finally produced a much battered envelope. "Just read this."

The officer looked as if he was on the verge of spontaneous combustion, but said nothing as he accepted the letter. He read it through once, quickly and angrily, then went back over it a second time while his eyes grew larger by the second. Then he read it a third time, lingering over certain parts and occasionally mothing phrases like "abuse of authority", "I really do know all about you" and "could lead to massive charges". Finally he put the letter back in its envelope, stowed it in a pocket and bounced once or twice on the balls of his feet.

"Right," he said. "I'll just be getting on then. Have to return a cell phone. Carry on." He nodded with dignity at each person around the table and left.

After a few seconds he came back, and gestured towards the cookie platter.

"Those chocolate?" he asked. "Right. Give me five."

…………

_The evil thing could be seen consulting with a pair of smaller evil things for a while, and then it was on its way. It insinuated its way through the backstreets, peering about itself suspiciously and pausing for nothing, because evil never sleeps and is ever-present and ever-vigilant._

_It did, however, make a short stop to buy hairgel because it was running low. _

…………

The sword juggler cleared his throat tentatively, before lifting the tent flap and peering into the inner sanctum of Madam Vutout.

"Are you alright?" he asked, directing the question at a robed figure bending over the wooden chest. "Only, lunch is over since half an hour back and the line outside is getting – oh, I'm terribly sorry." He paused, frowned in confusion and went on, rather suspiciously, "Actually, who are you? And why are you wearing the Madam's clothes?"

"Huh?" The young woman, who seemed to be in the process of dismantling the room entirely, judging by the state of it, straightened up and put her hands on her hips. "Really, I can't imagine what you are talking – " Suddenly catching sight of herself in the Soulsighting Mirror, she looked at her reflection in shock for several seconds before turning back to the sword juggler with a sweet smile.

"Poor, uh, _auntie_ seems to have come over a bit funny," she said, gesturing towards the second portion of the tent, the opening to which was veiled and completely covered. "I was just looking for her... medicine. Yeah. Medicine. Would you be a darling and send all the customers away for the afternoon?"

"What? How do you expect me to do that?"

"I don't know, tell them that unless they go home and drink nothing but lemon juice for the rest of the afternoon they're all going to be involved in an unlikely accident involving a psycopathic circus artist and several very sharp swords!" snapped the girl, her sweetness giving way for irritation. "Make something up! Gods, I really shouldn't have to deal with this, you know!"

_I really shouldn't_, thought Tsubaki, a.k.a. Madam Vutout, as the now _very_ confused sword juggler left her. At moments of high stress, the concentration needed to keep up her old woman's facade could easily slip, and this was stress at its absolute highest. She couldn't let everything fall apart now. She had come so far...

She had been an extremely successful thief. Always safe in her old fortune telling alter-ego, she could pull off daring break-in schemes without fear of recognition, and soon became a well-known figure in the deepest underground world. The difficulty of finding and contacting her did its part, too, for giving her fame and status among the criminal hotshots. And thus it was that the news of her reached the ears of Naraku.

He, or rather his representative, had approached her (after extensive and frustrated research into her whereabouts, she had noted with glee) a few months back with an offer: do these jobs for me, and I will grant you a place among the highest at the Club. It was tempting, very tempting. One does tire of making up fortunes day after dreary day and moving from place to place with no steady home. The Spider Club was known to her. She had done the odd job for Naraku before, as her old self. She really would have thought that they'd catch on to her identity sooner... but that didn't matter. The point was that the Spider Club could just as well provide her with the safe house and the shelter she needed. And all she had to do were two jobs – challenging, yes, but rather fun in their complexity.

Although, of course, she could say bye-bye to that place at the Club when Naraku found out she had just let all their lifted stuff... get lifted.

She had returned after a lunch on the town and sensed that something was not quite right. A first glance around her tent had found nothing to confirm this – nothing had been disturbed as far as she could see – but it was still there, the eerie feeling of having had someone inside her home.

This was confirmed when she opened the trunk where she kept all the information stolen from the CIA offices, and found it to be depressingly empty.

She had stormed out of her tent and demanded of all her neighbours if they had seen any strange, suspicious people about; a question which had earned her eight blank stares and one question if she had in fact noticed that it was a circus she was travelling with. Dissatisfied with her progress there she had returned to her tent and proceeded to turn it upside down in the hope that she had only temporarily mislaid the papers. A hope that was shattered when, under the now-empty trunk, she found a note saying _Just returning the favour, really_.

So, what now? There were obviously people who were onto her. They knew where she was. They knew _who_ she was. (God only knew how they'd found _that_ out – even Kag'n'Juro had never seen her other self.) They knew all about what she had been doing for the past couple of weeks. They might even know who hired her, although in truth she didn't really care if that little rat Naraku got what he deserved (_after_ he had compensated her for her work, of course).

It was time, decided Tsubaki, to go for a holiday.

…………

_The evil thing reached its destination, and laughed a small evil laugh. Then it sat down in a chair, crossed its evil legs and picked up a magazine. It read through this for a while, and then hailed a passing girl in a navy blue uniform. _

"_Excuse me," it said pleasantly, "I was just wondering when we hit the tax-free zone."_

"_Of course." The girl smiled, clearly not recognising the height of evil when she saw it. (It was probably the suit. It did tend to throw people off.) "One hour from start, usually, but perhaps a little bit later. Would you be wanting anything else, Mr. Onigumo?"_

"_A snapshot of two old friends right now would be dandy," smiled Naraku, "but I realise quite well that's nothing you can help me with. I'll just have to settle for imagining their faces…"_

…………

"Fuck!" said Inu-yasha, kicking the wall of their interrogation room viciously and then hopping around on one foot for some time while saying things about the wall's mother which were insulting but rather unlikely.

"I'm inclined to agree," muttered Kagome, who was sitting on at the table with her face buried in her hands, "although not about the doubtful virtue of Mrs Wall because I find that irrelevant. But I'm wholeheartedly behind the "Fuck"-comment."

"We were _this_ close," said Inu-yasha, spinning around and holding two fingers a hair's breadth from each other, "to catching him. And then he tricks us – again! How the hell did he manage to do it?"

"We've been through this a thousand times," groaned Kagome.

Inu-yasha ignored the tone. "Thousand and one is a magic number."

"No it isn't!"

"We track the car out of Prague and all the way to Kútna Hora, where we can soon confirm that a certain Muso has bought a train ticket that will, eventually, take him out of the Czech Republic and into Poland..."

"... so we hurry after and are able to stop him just before the border..." Kagome filled in, with a very bored tone of voice.

"... and do we find Naraku? No, we find some other dude! This is so bloody annoying – he must be thinking we're completely stupid!"

"Um," said the third occupant of the room, who was in fact the other dude and who had up until that point been staying very silent (since he sensed that neither Inu-yasha nor Kagome would have any objections to breaking his bones if he so much as breathed in an annoying fashion). "Actually, from what I can tell he seems to find you rather intelligent. Vexingly so, in fact."

Naraku's exact words had been "When IQ was handed out, those two probably bribed, threatened and by any other means necessary pushed their way to the front of the line. And then they went on to use that cleverness in the name of the," he had spat this word out, "_Law_. It is a sad thing that I see all too often; fine criminal minds corrupted by the wish to do good."

Somehow, felt the man now sharing a room with the mentioned criminal minds, it would not be a good idea to repeat this.

"You just shut up," snarled Kagome, lifting her head and glaring at him. "We are having a _really_ shitty day so far, and I find it unlikely that you'll do anything to improve it."

"You can start though," added Inu-yasha, "by telling us how you come to share the DNA of Naraku, Mr... what would you like to be called?"

"Muso is great, since that is my name," said the man mildly, resting his cuffed hands on the table. "Sometimes, when one is in this situation, one is offered a can of coke or a cigarette," he tried.

The other two stared at him blankly.

"Not that this is a requirement," he added with a sigh. "Well. About the DNA question. Naraku and I have the same DNA because some years ago, there were several new breakthroughs in Latvian demonic research, particularly on the type of conglommerative demon that Naraku is. This enabled a whole new manner of regenerative process: one that – "

"We already said we're having a shitty day," Kagome interrupted. "Stop yapping and cut to the chase, OK?"

Muso looked uncomfortable. "It's rather hard to... alright, in short: if Naraku asks me "Who's your daddy?", it's not because of a new interest in hiphop music."

"I'm sorry?" said Inu-yasha.

"He birthed me out of his body," said Muso, in a tone that contrived to sound as if this was something quite ordinary. He then looked rather pained as both Inu-yasha and Kagome started laughing so hard the former needed to lean against the wall for support and the latter almost tipped over her chair.

"I take back all I said about you not being able to improve my day," said Kagome eventually, drying tears of laughter out of her eyes. "Ah hah hah... lots of nice mental pictures. But yes, the theory is certainly sound enough. Logic states that a demon who is formed by the combination of many others, must naturally be able to cast off parts of that great conglommeration and form new demons. That's why you have the same DNA – you were conceived," here she stopped to snigger, "without mixing with anybody else's genes. That is very interesting. Also, it is something that should have been taken into account when the new shapeshifter passport law was passed. I see now – because those passports rely on DNA rather than photographs, Naraku was able to use your passport when leaving Venice."

"Is Naraku able to shift shape, by the way?" asked Inu-yasha. Muso shook his head.

"Theoretically, yes. However, he has to my knowledge never done so, although in accordance with the new law he, too, has the new form of DNA passport." He smiled. "I, on the other hand, find shifting to be very enjoyable indeed. For example, I can make my hands shrink like so," he frowned in concentration and his hands turned into two thin tendrils, "and thus effectively escape a pair of handcuffs." He easily slipped out of the cuffs, then let his hands turn back into their normal shape.

"A lovely demonstration," said Kagome dryly.

"Do you want me to put them back on?"

"Don't bother."

"I could, you know."

"There's not a doubt in my mind that you could." Kagome shrugged. "But we'll probably let you go anyway. We can't really prosecute on the grounds of "He used his own passport to buy a ticket on a train, the bastard!" And although we might be able to charge you for aiding and abetting, we don't have the time or patience to start digging out evidence. And you did raise our spirits a little bit. So, in short," she beamed at him, "you're free to trot off."

"Thank you," said Muso, looking vaguely surprised, and half rose out of his chair.

Inu-yasha, who had walked around the table until he was standing behind the shapeshifter, put both hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down firmly.

"_After_ you've told us where Naraku went, and why," said Kagome. She was still smiling, but it didn't look quite as cute anymore.

Muso grinned, nervously. "I don't know – "

"When we said we don't have a lot of time, I hope you didn't think that meant we don't have enough time to interrogate you at length and with every means avaliable to us."

"But I really don't – "

"You ever hear of an interrogation technique known as "Good cop, bad cop"? Yes? Think of me and Inu-yasha as Bad Cop and Worse Cop. As nicknames go, we're rather fond of those."

Muso appeared to think about it. "Who's who?" he asked eventually.

"That depends, on how early it is in the morning and how long it's been since our last cup of coffee. At the moment, the answer to both those questions is 'too'."

"Two?" asked Muso, raising two fingers interrogatively.

"Too. _Too_ early, _too_ long since coffee. So how about it? You won't have anything to lose by ratting daddy out, if that's what you think. Naraku's employees are deserting him one by one. He won't have time to start a vendetta against you, not with all the others he's already got on his revenge list."

"Oh, that's not a problem." Muso smiled. "And I'm not being loyal to the guy either – he's never deserved it. But I truly don't know where he is right now. He planned his escape on the basis that you would go chasing after me, and he probably took into account that you would catch me and make me tell you all I know, and that's why he took care to let me know as little as possible. All I know is, I dropped him off down by the river, back in Prague, and then kept driving in the direction he had said. I had no plans after I had followed his instructions, than to go home. I was looking forward to it," he added, pointedly.

"So why did you go to Prague?"

"I had been in Prague for about a month – I was staying there for business – when he called me from Venice and said that he needed a failsafe, should he get discovered and have to leave quickly. I mailed my passport to him so that he could get out if he had to. It was no bother to me, since I don't actually need my passport to get back to Poland. I didn't think he'd have to use it, but a couple of days ago he turned up at my flat, saying that he needed a place to stay and a way to get out of the city. Since I was leaving yesterday anyway, I agreed to bring him with me. But then he came up with this plan instead – to let you follow me in the belief that I was him under another alias, while he remained behind. So if I were you I'd zoom back to Prague again before he has time to weasel his way out of town."

"Yes... back..." Kagome suddenly didn't look all that enthusiastic. From the lessened pressure on his shoulders, Muso concluded that the same doubt was assailing Inu-yasha.

"So what's the real reason you're spending your time menacing me?" he asked carefully, and was rewarded with an almost imperceptible start.

"Well..." Kagome hesitated. "Actually, the fact is that we're taking any excuse right now to avoid going back to Prague and starting over from square one. Really, do you have any idea how annoying it is to try and extract information out of two hardened street kids who seem to think they're starring in The Shining, who refuse to give out any information without first being handsomely bribed and who _still_ won't tell you the truth?"

Muso shone up. "Oh, I know exactly," he said sympathetically.

"I didn't think you wou– " Kagome stopped, frowned. "Wait, what?"

"When we were in Prague," Muso started, but was interrupted by the ringing of a phone. Kagome made an annoyed sound, and held up one finger to silence him while answering the phone with the other hand.

"Hold that thought. Yeah? Huh? No, just talking to this guy we're interrogating. Turns out Naraku gave us the – _he did what?_ Not again! Where? _How?_ I don't – yeah. Yeah. Bye." She ended the call by punching the button viciously, and threw the phone onto the table (Muso quickly stretched out his hand and caught it, but was not thanked). "He's gone and skipped on us _again_! He's just been sighted on a plane leaving for USA! I don't get how he's able to _do_ this again and again! We had every exit from Prague watched, we had all the pickpockets keeping an eye out..."

"About that," said Muso timidly. "You were saying something about two girls who were annoying and creepy? Actually, you didn't say girls, you just said kids, but I assumed..."

"Go on," said Kagome, in a quiet and dangerous voice.

"Er, yes. Where I dropped Naraku off, there were these sisters, last name of Lafka. I didn't know how they were supposed to help him get out of town, but he said they knew things..."

"How was he planning to get them to say anything other than _'We've seen your death. We've seen the Reaper come for you'_?"

"I guess he supposed they'd show some respect for their cousin," said Muso.

He waited. He cleared his throat, politely. He looked at Kagome, and twisted his head to look at Inu-yasha.

"Er," he said. "Did I say something wrong?"

…………

…But because there is at least some justice in the world, it must be mentioned that all these woes and misfortunes were mere annoyances when compared to the time The Evil One, Naraku, was having a few hours after giving his pursuers the slip. He had arrived back in the States at eight o'clock, had arrived at the designated spot for his _Half-blood_ meeting at nine o'clock, and had been grabbed and hit on the head by two men that didn't _really_ look like art experts, now that he thought about it, at nine fifteen. His own experts had taken one look at the guys and run for it, leaving him on his own with four complete strangers, a headache and a jet lag so bad it wasn't even funny. He was pissed off.

"Who – the – _hell_ – are you?" he spat out through clenched teeth, glaring at the immaculately dressed youth in front of him. The youth in question smiled.

"I'm Shippou," he said pleasantly, "and the two men hanging on to you – aren't they cuddly? – are Hiten and Manten, names you may recognise from the 'door guards' section of Spider Club employee lists a few years back. They threw people out from your club for six months, so you'd better believe they have the strength and power to keep you in check. Now _this_," he gestured to the man beside him, "is someone I'm not acquainted with but who I'm sure is a nice person anyway. He is the only one of us who really _is_ what he gave himself out to be, which is a guy who knows his art."

"You're not a complete ignorant yourself," said Ayame's artsy friend tactfully.

"Oh, thank you. I do try my best."

"Your names do not actually tell me anything," snapped Naraku, who wasn't happy over not being the centre of attention. "Who the hell are you, who sent you and why?"

"Mm?" Shippou looked confused, then apologetic. "Oh, I'm so sorry! Of course, of course. I forgot you aren't as up to date as the rest of us. Well then, to make a long story short – you're an arse and under arrest."

"I'm sorry?"

"We don't like you, so we're dying to see you in prison browns," Shippou elaborated.

"Oh?" Naraku appeared to have calmed down. He seemed sure of himself now, cocky. "Do you have the authority to do that, you little runt? Do you even have any charges against me, except for me being... an arse, I think you said? Do you have evidence?"

Shippou smiled, brightly. "I believe the answers to those questions are yes, yes and... yes. But I'm sorry – I _still_ haven't told you who we are! Wait, I know something that'll make it fun: a guessing game. I'll give you the clues. One, we're usually referred to by three capital letters. Two, we're an agency, working to protect the innocent and enforce the law (you know, that thing you don't like). Three, we hate your guts."

He would treasure the sight of Naraku's widening eyes as one of his fondest memories.

"Inu-yasha and Kagome send their love, by the way. Now, if you'd care to step out _here_ you'll find the car ready to take you to police custody. We had hoped Tsubaki would be there to keep you company, but she hasn't had time to join us yet – she only just met up with our friends in Washington's police force, and won't be joining you until tomorrow. You'll be pleased to know she talked quite freely about getting to know you and all the fun things you've invited her to do – sharing is caring, don't you find? Sorry she couldn't share your car, though. Then again, we're holding you at the Sunset Gaol where there are lots of your old associates, and they've all said how glad they're going to be to talk to you again. Feels nice, doesn't it, to be so popular? Oh, here's the car. Nice car, isn't it? Clean and shiny, and painted in those lovely police colours you usually avoid like the plague. Watch your head..."

………………………

_So I'm off to Bulgaria tomorrow. Holiday, yay! It's been long awaited. Lately I've been taking on a little too much work, I feel – I'm absolutely exhausted. Then again, lots of work means lots of moneys. (Or would mean lots of moneys, if the government didn't insist on glomping a third of my earnings for taxes. Grmph.) _

_Oh well… I'm free, in any case. _

_Thank you to all those still reading this! Stay tuned for the stunning conclusion…;)_


	16. Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

The Three-eyed Bull hadn't ever been as loud as it was that Christmas Day.

"And then, and then, right," Shippou was explaining, laughing almost too hard to tell the story, "he wound down his window and stuck his head out and the last thing we heard as they took off was this trailing cry of _'I want my laaawwyeeeeerrr...'_ "

Royakan, Ginta and Hakkaku all roared with laughter. Once the noise had subsided somewhat, Shippou continued, "And you'll never guess where they put him, when they got to Sunset..."

"Where?" asked Royakan, drying tears of laughter out of his eyes.

"They claimed their cells were all full so they put him in the women's block, right next to Kikyo Higurashi! She spent the entire night alternating between whispered death threats and loud, detailed descriptions of his performance in bed that had the rest of the cell block rolling with laughter – the guards said he was half hysterical when they came to get him moved this morning!"

"Will you tell them to keep it down _a little bit_?" asked Toto-sai as he brought Sesshoumaru his beer, indicating Ginta who was now bent over double, pounding the table with his fist. "I'll get complaints from the neighbours if they keep this up."

"Come on, you can't blame them," smiled Sesshoumaru. "We've spent half a year on this guy. Shippou's broken into enough computers to earn him life, Royakan has been all over USA gathering witness statements and the Nerds... actually, they've mostly played computer games and watched movies. But the point is, most of us have worked hard, and now we want to celebrate."

"As long as _you_ talk to the neighbours," said Toto-sai darkly, but shrugged. "Oh well. Keep buying beer and I'm happy."

"Trust me, there's going to be _a lot_ of beer bought here tonight." He grinned at the wizened barkeep, and turned towards the colleague on his right, who was looking into his beer glass with a sulky expression. "Hiten, why this scowling face? Aren't you happy?"

"Someone's been filching out of my stash," said Hiten, glancing around to ensure that his brother wasn't nearby. "It's almost empty. When I find out who it is..."

Kagura, who was sitting opposite them, rested her chin in her hand, looked the other way and whistled innocently.

"Why do you even _have_ a cookie stash at the office?" asked Sesshoumaru, reflecting not for the first time that with all the assorted addictions the agency members had, he didn't even need drugs to make his day an endless discussion of withdrawal symptoms and secret hoards. There was The Matrix and coffee – oh, the coffee – and Hiten's _ridiculous_ stash, even more so because every YSA member (excepting Manten) knew exactly where it was... "Every once in a while Spiderman gets hold of some and you know what sugar does to him."

"I can't keep cookies at home," Hiten snapped, looking annoyed that Sesshoumaru didn't understand. "Manten is way past his reccomended weight as it is, and he has a terrible sweet tooth..."

While his health was being thus pondered, Manten was busy discussing someone else's life.

"They've been sitting there for the last half hour, all quiet like," he said.

"Uh-huh, but he hasn't taken her hand _yet_," snorted Jaken. "Needs to learn how to handle women, really..."

Spiderman indicated, in nods and grimaces and gestures, that the subject of their discussion was a coward and a spineless sissy and had stupid hair to boot.

"If I were him I'd just reach over and give her a kiss," piped up the the tinny, tiny voice of Myoga.

"You wouldn't reach," said Jaken, brutal but honest.

…………………………………

Unknowingly part of this conversation, Koga and Ayame were sitting opposite each other at a small table some way off from the rest of the party. Koga had indeed not yet tried to take her hand, because he wasn't sure she wouldn't pull away.

"So Sesshoumaru came to get me this morning," smiled Ayame. "It didn't exactly make him popular among the plods, believe me. They wanted to keep me until I was proven innocent, but he bullied them into letting me go. They told him that Naraku can't be blamed for _everything_ that goes wrong in this country, you know, and just because the guy has been caught doesn't mean every single crime is solved. He told them no, but very nearly. Finally they agreed to let me leave as long as Sesshoumaru promised to keep an eye on me and stop me if I looked like I was planning to leave the country or something. So I guess I'll have to postpone that holiday to Italy I was planning." She rolled her eyes, but smiled.

"I'm really happy you're out," grinned Koga. "So how's Sesshoumaru planning to explain away your fingerprints in the camera room?"

"It's only a partial, and he's hoping they'll forget about it once Tsubaki pleads guilty."

"They need evidence against her, too."

"He has his own nose evidence. He smelled her at the bank, and he'll be doing an identity parade – "

" – sniffade – "

" – that's not a word."

"You know what I mean."

"Anyway, he'll be doing a... sniffade... tomorrow to identify her. Also, he's offered to hand the security tapes over to the YSA expert, to see if there is any information to be got from it."

"The expert... that'll be Shippou. Will he be able to get something from it?"

"You kidding?" Ayame smiled. "Credit me with some workmanship, Koga. No one could glean anything from that tape."

"But then..."

"No one except me. The police don't have to know who did the actual work, do they? I'll do my best. Hopefully that'll be enough."

Koga looked at her, leaned his head in his hand. "I was really worried about you," he said.

"Thanks." Ayame smiled, but looked uncertain. "Look, Koga, about you and me... I'm sorry. I'm not sure that you'll understand, but..."

"I do."

"You don't even know what I'm talking about!"

"Yes, I do." Koga smiled, too, rather sadly. "I may not be a clever little bugger like Shippou or a slick intelligent one like Sessoumaru, but I'm not completely bloody stupid, you know. I've known all along you were acting, at least a little – wanting to make me believe we could be back to what we were before. I know why, too. You wanted the YSA to help you, and you thought we were more likely to if there was a chance you'd be the future Mrs YSA – in a manner of speaking."

"I – " Ayame began, then bit her lip and looked away, her expression deeply unhappy. "I'm really sorry."

"I don't care." Koga spoke abruptly, then winced. "I mean, not like that – that sounded unpleasant – I care about you being sorry and all, of course, but... what I meant is... I don't care about why you pretended to like me again, or even _that_ you pretended to like me again. Because I've known all along you were doing it on purpose, but still... I really do like you. I'm sorry about all that happened last time, and I'm sorry about how stupid it all became... and I would really like, if you want to... um... this is going to sound corny, but try again? I mean, I don't know if you feel the same way or anything, and maybe you already have a boyfriend – I mean, why wouldn't you? But..."

"I'd love to," said Ayame. She was smiling now, and her eyes were suspiciously shiny. "I still have to teach you to finish your sentences, after all..."

And now Koga did take her hand.

…………………………………

"To Naraku!"

"To Naraku!"

"To a guy who has thwarted us at every turn and driven us half insane sometimes!"

"To him, yeah!"

"Without him we wouldn't have had half as fun this year!"

"I'm not too sure about that, but never mind!"

"They're certainly going at it," Kagura remarked, watching Royakan and The Nerds raising their glasses to the ceiling. "I can't wait to be making movies with those two..."

"You're going to do it, then?" asked Sesshoumaru, raising his eyebrows. She shrugged.

"Renovation can't get started until after New Year's anyway, since all the workmen are on holiday. It'll be some time until the restaurant is up and running again."

"So how are you managing?"

"It's alright." She shrugged again. "Both me and Goshinki have got a bit put by since our Spider Club days. So now we're just enjoying the first holiday we've had since we got the place started. We've been living on coffee and nerves, basically, for the last couple of months. Mostly nerves. Mostly _each other's_ nerves."

Goshinki, who was passing with drinks, frowned suddenly and whumped her head. "At least bother with a tiny mind block if you're going to be thinking things about what a bastard I am early in the morning!"

"Ah, but doesn't it warm your heart that I'm so completely open with you that I don't bother to hide my thoughts even while I'm being mean about you?" smiled Kagura.

"Smart-arse." Goshinki ruffled her hair affectionately and moved on.

"He's looking out-of-the-ordinary happy today, by the way," Hiten commented. Kagura shrugged, for the third time.

"I gave him Global knives for Christmas."

"And what did he give you?"

"Fifteen full-size posters of Orlando Bloom," said Kagura happily, full of glee.

"Oh. How... nice?"

"Smashing. I use them for dart boards. Hey, Shippou!"

"Hey." Shippou dropped into the seat opposite her, laughing. "Gods, could you wish for a more perfect Christmas Day? It's even snowing!"

"Fuck," said Sesshoumaru, a statement that did not tally with Shippou's. "The car." He rose and hurried out of the pub, leaving Kagura staring after him in a faintly puzzled fashion.

"Must have left the roof off," suggested Hiten. "I don't know what it is with that family and transport systems – Inu-yasha kisses his motorcycle good night and rather than take someone to a drive-in in his car, Sesshoumaru is more likely to go to a drive-in _with_ his car. I'm sure it's not healthy." He shook his head sadly, and looked at Shippou. "So you got tired of the Nerds?"

"More like I value my life." Shippou smiled and jerked his head towards the table he'd left; Hakkaku was walking up and down on it, on his hands. "They're playing their Matrix Trivial Pursuit. When you answer a question wrong you have to remove a hand from the table."

Kagura looked over at the wolf demons, frowning. "But that means he'll only have to give a wrong answer twice and he'll crash head-first into the table!"

"From their point of view, that's three times too many."

"Three?"

"Look, they aren't exactly logical when it comes to The Matrix."

Royakan joined them, grinning ear to ear. "Want to bet how long before one of them breaks his nose? I'm guessing thirty minutes, at the outside. Aw, Shippou... what are you glaring at me like that for? When you have close on thirty kids, you _have_ to learn being callous about minor injuries."

"You'll turn into Naraku Jr if you're not careful."

"Don't give me that lecturing attitude – it's Christmas!" Royakan slapped his back enthusiastically, and ignored the fact that he had just effectively winded the younger man. "Get into the spirit! Drink some mead! Sing something jolly! Go off and buy a sprig of mistletoe, and then corner some unsuspecting girl! God knows that you need it. I mean, the last time I heard you mention you'd even _talked_ to a girl was when you'd called my house and gotten hold of my daughter!"

He laughed. So did Shippou (slightly hysterically).

Sesshoumaru chose that moment to reappear and, correctly assessing the situation, mentioned that Manten appeared to have started a heated argument about cyber nannies. This gave Shippou an excuse to remove himself, and also got rid of Hiten who naturally flew to his brother's rescue, ready to back him up in whatever assertion he might make. (Not literally flew, though. Last time the brothers had flown in the bar Toto-sai had banned them from buying drinks for two months. They were still getting over it.)

Sesshoumaru sank down in Shippou's vacated chair with a sigh.

"Your baby alright?" asked Kagura, sarcastically.

"Thankfully, yes," replied Sesshoumaru, not noticing the tone, and turned towards his colleague. "So, Royakan. When are you planning on telling Shippou you've known about him and Kit for the last four months?"

Royakan started. He then tried, and failed, to summon up an innocent expression.

"It won't work. I already know you're a sadistic bastard."

Royakan gave up. "I've had so much fun," he said sadly. "But now I suppose you'll make me put him out of his misery?"

"He's a seventeen-year-old boy, just fallen in love. I don't think you need to make that situation any more full of anxiety than it already is." Sesshoumaru looked suspiciously at the other man. "You _were_ planning to tell him anyway, weren't you?"

"Huh? Oh, yes! Of course, of course," said Royakan, a little too quickly. "Anything else would be cruel and I am not at all a cruel person. How about I break the news at New Year's? The sound of the fireworks can block out my roars of laughter."

"Thoughtful." Sesshoumaru's tone was withering. "No, tell him tonight. Make a Christmas present of it."

"I already sent him a virus-infected e-mail! Jeez, how much do you want me to give the boy? It'll spoil him rotten."

"You sent him what?" asked Kagura, incredulous.

"He loves getting them," Royakan assured her. "Shippou, you see, is the originator of most famous viruses today – the Foxy, the AlyssA and at least half of the Thyme viruses. Sending him new ones from little would-be hackers is like sending demos to Paul McCartney. Mostly, they just make him smile. Anyway, enough about viruses. Let's move on to parasites. It's quite certain that Naraku's behind bars for good now, is it?"

"Oh, yes," Sesshoumaru nodded. "We lost at least seventy or eighty percent of our own material when Kag'n'Juro had the bright idea to do a little breaking and entering, and I think it's too much to hope that we'll ever get any of it back. That means that we won't be able to charge him for the twenty-four busted casinos, the ruined record company, a few instances of blackmail or a number of other smaller cases. But none of those are among our most important points of charge, and to tell the truth I don't care very much about casinos getting what's only their due, either. And our case has been strengthened, too – by Tsubaki. She willingly turned informant when we offered to cut her sentence in exchange for the dirt. That gives us at least four very strong witnesses: Tsubaki, Kag'n'Juro, Goshinki, and you, Kagura."

"Verily, thank the gods," yawned Kagura. "That means this whole 'key witness' business can finally come to an end. I was really getting tired of it."

"And you'll be rid of Kag'n'Juro, too, the moment the trial is over," smiled Sesshoumaru. "Bit of a bonus, that."

"Kag'n'Juro?" Kagura raised her eyebrows, looking surprised. "Oh! No, he's staying on, actually. For safety, if for nothing else."

"Safety?"

"The Saimyoshi have got a contract on all of us. Naraku commissioned them ages ago, to do everyone who stepped up to witness against him in eventual trials. Thanks to Shippou breaking into their records and playing around with a few of the dates the contract runs out in four months, but we thought – just to be sure – that it was best if none of us was without the safety net of having another person nearby for now."

"You really care about him, don't you?" asked Sesshoumaru, amused. Kagura made a face.

"Don't tell anyone."

"But that's great! I take it you'll be doing some redecorating, then?" Royakan, who was currently on the prowl for winter break job opportunities for his numerous offspring, leaned forward eagerly. "The As Of Yet Undecided Room is finally going to be Decided? Just say the word if you need help with carrying, sorting or painting – I have seven or eight pairs of hands ready for labour."

"No, we're going to keep the Junkie as it is," laughed Kagura. "You could offer your kids' services to Goshinki in regards to my room, though, since that's what Kag'n'Juro will be taking over. I'm moving out."

Sesshoumaru glanced towards the bar, where Goshinki and Jinenji were seated and talking about soccer. Neither gave off the impression of even being aware of any other conversation than their own – however, Jinenji's ears had just gone rather red and Goshinki seemed to be grinning rather more than what was really merited by their discussion of the Italian judge Collina's approach to the yellow card. He looked back and raised his eyebrows, asking a question. Kagura looked at him with studied innocence. He glanced towards Jinenji again, and back again. Kagura didn't blink.

"That's nice," said Sesshoumaru, admitting defeat. No wonder she won at poker.

"Mm," smiled Kagura. "Right after I'm done with the movie, I think. It'll make a nice coming home present, plus I can get the Nerds to help out."

"I take it you're not planning to bring anything breakable with you."

"Good point. I might rope Goshinki in, too. Actually, I think I'll do that right now." She grinned at them and rose, making her way over towards the men at the bar – however, it was not Goshinki she turned to when she had drawn up a chair between them, but Jinenji. Sesshoumaru looked askance at Royakan and raised his eyebrows, smiling, before letting his gaze wander around the room and come to rest on Ayame and Koga.

"Looks like those two have patched up," said Royakan, who had evidently let his eyes follow the same path. He grinned, with only a hint of a leer.

"Inu-yasha will be happy, at least," Sesshoumaru commented. "He's always suspected Koga of trying to steal Kagome under his nose. He was probably right, too. Only Kagome wouldn't exactly have let herself be stolen, so it was a pretty irrational fear anyway. Men," he added, heavily.

"Yeah," said Royakan carefully. "Right. Anyway, about Inu-yasha and Kagome, where are they? Aren't they supposed to be here? They could've caught a plane and been here this morning."

"Ah yes." Sesshoumaru smiled. "I e-mailed them as soon as the Naraku trap was all orgnised and ready to spring, but I never received an answer. So I rang Shiori, and she said she hadn't heard from them since they called her to say the Naraku situation looked like it would be solved after all. They hadn't even been back to pick up their luggage, actually. But they had mentioned something about being promised a tour of Warsaw..."

…………………………………

Kaede read through the e-mail again.

_By now you'll have learnt, _it said, _that Naraku has finally embezzled his last funds. If you have some spare time one day, would you mind nipping down to Sunset and snapping a picture of him to send us – preferably through the bars? We're dying to see how he's looking, these days. Did they manage to fix him up with Armani browns, do you know? _

_(Hah. Hah. Hah.)_

_We expect why you're wondering why we're not back and celebrating. You could say we're tying up loose ends. First, we spent a week in Warsaw following his offspring Muso – we wanted to make sure he hadn't inherited any traits from daddy. We followed him everywhere; to the war monuments, churches and extremely good restaurants._

_Warsaw is stunning. _

_Next we went to Cyprus – that's where we are now – because we think that Naraku may have hidden something here. _

_Drugs, maybe. _

_Or jewels. _

_Whatever will make the finance department happy. _

_What do you want him to have hidden?_

_Anyway, we're planning to go to Norway next, because after all his alias Red Ipsen was from Norway, so maybe he has something going there. Besides, we hear the fjords are beautiful._

_So what we're saying is, basically, can you send us some more money? We spent the last we had on a tour by horseback yesterday. (Which we went on because it was a perfect way to scout the countryside, of course.) Extended funds would really come in handy at this stage. _

_If it helps make up your mind, we promise to send you postcards._

_Got to go! Dinner's waiting (in the most lovely little restaurant, you'd adore it). Love from,_

_Kagome and Inu-yasha_

Kaede leaned back in her chair and smiled, slightly. What the hell. Everyone deserved a holiday, didn't they? She knew Kagome had hardly taken a day off once the trials of Kikyo were over, and Inu-yasha seemed to be a guy who took his work seriously, as well.

She thought for a bit, then typed up a rather inventive request for funds to give to the head of the finance department when she met him for coffee that afternoon. Then she turned back to her e-mail, typed and sent off a reply to Kagome saying that money was on its way, hesitated and sent off a second one telling her to have a good time. She smiled to herself again, shut the computer down and went out to lunch.

She wouldn't read Kagome's reply until that evening, which was probably lucky for the YSA agent since by then it'd be too late to retract the money request. It was a very short e-mail, short but to the point,

_Thank you._

_...sir._

………

_The End_

…………………………………

_And so we come at last to THE CONCLUSION OF THE STORY! (Wow.) Once again, it feels as if I started on this just a couple of weeks ago, when in truth it's been about a year. Of course, my timing was – as I've already pointed out – screwed up. I mean, I've titled this chapter Merry Christmas and it is now September. (I suck.) _

_Oh well! I hope you liked this second instalment of the YSA, and I hope I haven't left any ends loose for you…;) _

_Speaking of nothing, I've started studying again, and by God I sometimes wonder why. (This is why it's taken me EVEN longer than usual to update. Soz.) Homework is an invention of the devil. _


End file.
